Stephen william hawking (CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (stephen william hawking, 1942, 65438+18 October-), a famous British physicist, is regarded as one of the most outstanding theoretical physicists after Einstein in public evaluation. He proposed that the big bang started from the singularity, and the black hole would eventually evaporate from this moment, which was an important step to unify the two basic theories of physics in the 20th century-Einstein's theory of relativity and Planck's quantum theory. Suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, he is almost paralyzed and unable to pronounce, but he still published A Brief History of Time in 1988, and has sold more than 100000 copies so far, becoming one of the best-selling popular science works in the world. On April 20, 2009, Cambridge University revealed that the famous physicist Hawking was seriously ill. Hawking, 67, has been infected with the respiratory system for several weeks. Stephen Hawking and his first wife, Jane Wilde Hawking, were born in Oxford, England on 1942. The day of birth happened to be the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death. Her father Frank is an expert in tropical diseases who graduated from Oxford University, and her mother Isabel studied philosophy, politics and economy in Oxford in the 1960s. 1942 65438+ 10, Nazi Germany bombed England indiscriminately, and London was attacked almost every night. This forced the Hawkins to leave their home in Haegert and take refuge in Oxford. After Hawking was born, they returned to London. When he was a child, Hawking's academic performance was not outstanding, but he liked to design extremely complicated toys. It is said that they once made a simple computer. 1959, 17-year-old Hawking entered the University College of Oxford University to study natural science, claiming that it took him very little time to get a first-class honorary degree, and then transferred to Cambridge University to study cosmology. 1963 was diagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, that is, motor neuropathy. At that time, the doctor diagnosed that he could only live for two years. Although he survived, he gradually became paralyzed in the next few decades. Hawking once clarified that he didn't drink at that time, but felt that he had a "tragic character" and was addicted to Wagner's music. Until he met his first wife, Jane Wilde, and they got married and had three children. He received his doctorate at the age of 23 and stayed at Cambridge University for research. Roger penrose, a professor at Birkbeck College in London, began to develop singularity theory in the early 1960s, which attracted the attention of the research team of Cambridge University. After listening to Bipenrose's research, Hawking said to his teacher on his way back, "I wonder what will happen if Penrose's singularity theory is applied to the whole universe?" At the beginning of 1970, Hawking and Penrose jointly published a paper, pointing out that if the general theory of relativity is correct, there must be a singularity before BIGBANG, which became the first important article, and then became one of the few scholars who took black holes seriously. He combined quantum mechanics with general relativity.1In March, 974, Hawking proposed in Nature that black holes emit energy. In the end, Hawking's new discovery was regarded as theoretical physics for many years. Einstein's theory of relativity is the basic theory about space-time and gravity, which was mainly founded by Albert Einstein and divided into special relativity (special relativity) and general relativity (general relativity). The basic assumption of relativity is the principle of relativity, that is, the laws of physics have nothing to do with the choice of reference frame. Special relativity discusses the physical laws between inertial reference systems with uniform linear motion, and the latter is extended to reference systems with acceleration. & gt the most important development. This paper is called "one of the most profound papers in the history of physics". These years' research made him quickly famous in academic circles. From 1975 to 1976, he successively won the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, the 11th Medal of the Papal Science Society of Vatican, the Hopkins Award, the Danny O 'Heinemann Award, the Maxwell Award and the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society of America, and 1978 won the Albert Einstein Award. Starting from 1979, he was hired as Professor Lucson of the School of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of Cambridge University, and Newton also held this honorary position in 1663. At the end of June, 2006, 165438+ will be awarded the copley Medal by the Royal Society, just like Einstein and Darwin. 1983, Hawking and Jim Huldt further put forward the "borderless proposal", which changed the world view of scientists at that time. Hawking, who was almost completely paralyzed, could not move his limbs. He also lost the ability to speak after undergoing pneumonia surgery on 1980. However, with a high-tech wheelchair, he can still make synthetic speech, make phone calls and write down a series of difficult equations. It is reported that Huo Zheng Jin has tried a new system, which allows the computer to directly read the information in his brain, thus "my brain writes my mouth". When he speaks, he will twitch his right cheek muscle first. When the infrared sensor on his glasses receives the information, the computer will type automatically. Every time Hawking twitches, the buoy can choose the target. The computer is tailored by Intel; The phonetic system was written by the American company Words-Plus in the mid-1980' s 1980' s, and it specially rewrote the whole program for Hawking to use the new Windows XP system. When Hawking suddenly laughs and his cheek muscles twitch excessively, a lot of rubbish will appear on the screen. Computer: Notebook computer made by Intel, with built-in Pentium M 1.5GHz CPU and wireless broadband Internet access. Where there is no wireless Internet access, you can dial the pronunciation of Cambridge University directly through the Nokia telephone network card: Hawking uses the equalizer pronunciation program developed by Words-Plus, which sounds a bit like an electronic dictionary with an American accent (or a Nordic accent). He said in Hong Kong in 2006 that the original system still had English with a French accent, but if he used this accent, I'm afraid his wife would divorce him. Telephone: there is a wireless telephone system, which can dial or receive wires directly from the computer. Universal remote control: The wheelchair is equipped with universal infrared remote control, which can control TV, video recorder, listen to music, lock the door and switch the lights for storage. Hawking is used to storing all speeches and papers on a storage disk, and theoretically any speech can also be stored as a power supply. The battery is hidden under the wheelchair, which can support both wheelchair and computer-operated typing. Hawking's glasses are equipped with infrared emitters and detectors at the upper right, as long as he moves his eyes. When entering complex formulas, he will use TeX (a formula compiling software commonly used in the scientific community and supported by Wikipedia). For example, he can enter $ {-b \ pm \ sqrt {b2-4ac} \ over {2a}} $ to get the quadratic equation solution formula. Hawking has expressed his views on human beings, life and God in many public occasions in the past. The excerpt is as follows: Moving to outer space: "After 20 years, we may have established a permanent base on the moon, and after 40 years, we may have established a base on Mars. But both the moon and Mars are small and lack or have no atmosphere at all. We won't find a place as beautiful as the earth unless we leave the solar system. Expanding living space into space is very important for human survival. Life on earth is increasingly threatened by disasters, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, genetically modified viruses, and some unimaginable disasters. However, if mankind can avoid self-destruction in the next few hundred years, we should find a place to live outside the earth. (Visiting Hong Kong in 2006) Basic research: "Basic scientific research should be based on scientific considerations and not dominated by the economy, but the development of basic scientific research often brings economic benefits. For example, my predecessor, paul dirac of Cambridge University, made it possible to develop transistors, which are the foundation of modern electronics and computer industry; Another Francis Harry Compton Crick from Cambridge University discovered the structure of DNA, which became the foundation of biotechnology industry. (Visiting Hong Kong in 2006) In view of a paralyzed patient named Binzai (Deng) in Hong Kong, he openly demanded the legalization of euthanasia: "I think he (Binzai) should have the right to decide to end his own life, but it would be a big mistake. No matter how bad fate seems, you can still make a difference and achieve something. As long as there is life, there is always hope. (Visiting Hong Kong in 2006) The existence of God: "French scientist Laplace once explained to Napoleon how scientific laws affect the evolution of the universe. But Napoleon asked, what role does God play in this process? The scientist replied, I don't need this hypothesis. (Visiting Hong Kong in 2006) published a well-known article: "I was told that if I add a mathematical formula to a brief history of time, the sales of this book will be halved. (1993 Dublin) The so-called "common sense": "We have been taught a lot of common sense, but common sense is often just synonymous with prejudice. On nuclear weapons: "On average, each of us has four tons of high explosives, but only half a pound of explosives can kill one person, so we have 16000 times as many nuclear weapons as we need. We must understand that we are not in a state of conflict with the Soviet Union, and both sides need each other to maintain stability. For the outside world, oriental philosophy is associated with the theory of "black hole" and "singularity theorem": "This is fashionable nonsense. People fall into oriental mysticism because it is something they have never encountered before. But as a description of reality, they can't produce any results at all ... If you are familiar with oriental mysticism, you will find that they seem to remind people of modern physics or cosmology, but I don't think they have any meaning ... If the word "frozen star" (the earliest name of black hole) in Russian is widely accepted, then this part of oriental mythology is completely meaningless. They are named "black holes" because they remind people of the fear of destruction and being swallowed up, so they are related in this sense. I'm not afraid of being thrown into a black hole because I know them. In a sense, I feel that I am their master. 」