Celebrating Stephen Hawking
This morning the world woke up to the sad news that Stephen Hawking has passed away. One of the greatest, and most famous, scientists of modern times Hawking will be sorely missed by his family and friends, his colleagues, the scientific community as a whole, and not least by us. Here is a collection of material published on Plus over the years by or about Hawking and his work.
Celebrating Stephen Hawking — In memory of Stephen Hawking we look at the equation that was one of his greatest contributions to physics and cosmology.
Stephen Hawking: Memories of a colleague — Cambridge mathematicians and physicists remember their most famous colleague with fondness.
Stephen Hawking: Milestones of a life in physics — We explore some of Hawking's most significant achievements in physics.
Articles by Stephen Hawking
A brief history of mine — In this excerpt from Stephen Hawking's address to his 70th birthday symposium Hawking looks back over his life and how our understanding of the Universe has changed over the decades.
My 60 years in a nutshell — This is an Stephen Hawking's address to his 60th birthday symposium, in which he looks back over some of his favourite achievements.
Articles relevant to Hawking's work
From planets to universes — In this article Astronomer Royal Martin Rees looks back over the developments in astronomy over the decades spanned by Hawking's and his own career. It comes in two parts, the first is here and the second here, and is based on Rees's lecture at Hawking's 70th birthday symposium.
What is general relativity? — Hawking's work concerned the Universe at large scales: the scale of planets, stars and galaxies. At these scales the dominant force is gravity, which is described by Einstein's general theory of relativity. Here's a quick introduction.
What is a black hole - physically? — Hawking is famous for his work on black holes. In this article and video cosmologist Pau Figueras, who worked with Hawking, explains what black holes are, physically, and how we observe them. Be prepared to be spaghettified.
What is a black hole - mathematically? — In this article and video cosmologist Figueras looks at black holes from a mathematical point of view.
Listening to the Universe: Gravitational waves — The most important breakthrough in 21st century physics was the detection of gravitational waves, caused by the collisions of massive black holes. According to Hawking it revolutionised astronomy. This collection of articles and videos tells you all you need to know about gravitational waves.
The limits of information — In the 1970s Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes come with a property called entropy. This article explores what this means and how it has led to the astonishing discovery that there's a limit to how much information you can fit into a region of space.