Stephen Hawking's ashes to be interred near Sir Isaac Newton's grave
The ashes of Professor Stephen Hawking will be interred next to the grave of Sir Isaac Newton at Westminster Abbey, it has been revealed. The renowned theoretical physicist's final resting place will also be near that of Charles Darwin, who was buried there in 1882.
Stephen Hawking's Last Paper (Probably) Doesn't Prove We Live in a Multiverse
A few months before physicist Stephen Hawking died, he published a paper that several media outlets touted as a way to finally prove (or disprove) the existence of parallel worlds. But that claim may be a bit of cosmic inflation, said several physicists who were not involved in Hawking's research.
"The paper makes no statements about observational tests. It's not entirely uninteresting, but it's one of literally several thousand ideas for what might possibly have happened in the early universe" many of which include parallel worlds, said Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies in Germany, who blogs at backreaction.blogspot.com.
Sabine Hossenfelder's blog post: Hawking's "Final Theory" is not groundbreaking
A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation? (arXiv:1707.07702 [hep-th])
Hawking's final quest: saving quantum theory from black holes
Hawking spent much of his later years trying to figure out how a black hole could regurgitate information—although he also worked on theories of what triggered the big bang. Three years ago he began his last work on black holes with Malcolm Perry, a theoretical physicist and Hawking's colleague at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and Andrew Strominger, a theorist at Harvard University. "It was only 2 weeks ago that I saw him," Perry says. "He certainly wasn't in the best shape, but his mind was clearly focused on the problem."
[...] [Strictly] speaking, Strominger says, the theorem states only that two similar black holes can be "transformed" into each other by a handful of mathematical relations called diffeomorphisms, which relabel the coordinates of space-time. An infinite family of other diffeomorphisms has been neglected for decades, he says. They imply that a black hole's event horizon might be bedecked with an infinity of charges, a bit like electric charges. The charges could distinguish one black hole from another and encode infalling information, Strominger says. "We're cautiously optimistic about this idea," he says. "Stephen was very optimistic."
However, the charges may not encode enough information or may not do so in a unique way, Giddings cautions. One theorist who requested anonymity out of respect for Hawking says his various solutions for the black hole information problem pale next to his best work. Hawking's latest work also misses a bigger issue, the theorist says. If a black hole preserves information, he argues, then an unavoidable conclusion of Einstein's theory of gravity—that there's no way to tell if you're falling into a huge black hole—must be wrong.
Soft Hair on Black Holes (open, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.231301) (DX) (arXiv)
Also at Discover Magazine and NBF.
Previously: Stephen Hawking Dead at 76
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Stephen Hawking, a widely known physicist, sometimes mistaken as cosmetician, died Wednesday after complications due to ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a progressive neurodegenerative disease. He was 76.
Coverage at BBC (obituary), The Guardian, Reuters, NPR, and The Huffington Post.
janrinok writes:
It is with sadness that we hear the news this morning in the UK that Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76. Diagnosed with a type of motor neuron disease disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) in 1964, he was told that he would have only a few years to live. But he confounded many experts and led life to the fullest within his personal limitations.
While he undoubtedly suffered as a result of his physical disabilities, it was his mental powers that set him apart from most of the human race. His book - A Brief History of Time - sold over 16 million copies, but it is said that it was probably read by a much smaller number of people, and understood by even fewer.
I hope that others here will contribute their own memories of the man and his achievements as the following days progress.
Rest in Peace - Stephen Hawking.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday March 21 2018, @03:45PM (5 children)
That's a good blog in general, I've read it for a long time. When I started reading about the multiverse cranks in the summary my reaction was "oh no, I just read a great summary on backreaction debunking the whole thing so I'll post a link for the karma" but LOL that was the next paragraph.
For people not tuned into contemporary physics issues, the multiverse situation is almost exactly like squaring the circle or trisecting angles such that the general public and journalists are utterly fascinated and consider it long proven in direct contradiction to the professionals, and the poor physicists are deluged with crackpot proofs about multiverse this and that implying warp drives and human spirits exist because God is a quantum computer and similar such LSD dreams. Multiverse is kinda like where "string theory proved my neighbor was anally probed by a space alien UFO" amateurs go after they get BTFO.
Generally speaking if you read Warhammer 40K fictional lore and it sounds more believable than an amateur or journalist pushing multiverse or string fiction, then they're probably wrong and making stuff up. I mean, whats more likely, multiverses or having an actual God Emperor leading mankind ... hmmm. Hold on while I think about that for a minute...
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:27PM (4 children)
WTFDTM?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:59PM (2 children)
ISWYDT,VLMIFOSAU,BTFO=BTFO.CWIM?
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday March 21 2018, @08:30PM (1 child)
QWERTYUIOOPASDFHKJLL
(Score: 3, Funny) by isostatic on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:56PM
Hey that's my password!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kalas on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:57PM
BTFO = Blown The Fuck Out