Stephen Hawking has died

N&P: Discuss governments, nations, politics and recent related news here.

Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital

Post Reply
Eulogy
Jedi Knight
Posts: 959
Joined: 2007-04-28 10:23pm

Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Eulogy »

Physicist Stephen Hawking dies aged 76

Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76, his family has said.

The British theoretical physicist was known for his groundbreaking work with black holes and relativity, and was the author of several popular science books including A Brief History of Time.

His children, Lucy, Robert and Tim, said: "We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today.

"He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years."

They praised his "courage and persistence" and said his "brilliance and humour" inspired people across the world.

"He once said, 'It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.' We will miss him forever," they said.
The BBC

:(
"A word of advice: next time you post, try not to inadvertently reveal why you've had no success with real women." Darth Wong to Bubble Boy
"I see you do not understand objectivity," said Tom Carder, a fundie fucknut to Darth Wong
User avatar
mr friendly guy
The Doctor
Posts: 11235
Joined: 2004-12-12 10:55pm
Location: In a 1960s police telephone box somewhere in Australia

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by mr friendly guy »

He survived this long with his disease. Rest in peace.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.

Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
User avatar
ANGELUS
Padawan Learner
Posts: 416
Joined: 2003-03-04 02:11pm
Location: Valhöll

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by ANGELUS »

Today the universe got a little bit darker.
~ Some men just want to watch the world burn ~
Marko Dash
Jedi Knight
Posts: 718
Joined: 2006-01-29 03:42am
Location: south carolina, USA
Contact:

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Marko Dash »

damn, i knew his condition had been declining these last few years but i thought he'd last a while longer.
If a black-hawk flies over a light show and is not harmed, does that make it immune to lasers?
User avatar
Dragon Angel
Jedi Knight
Posts: 753
Joined: 2010-02-08 09:20am
Location: A Place Called...

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Dragon Angel »

...God fuck. This world would be miraculously lucky to see another like him once more. Rest in peace, sir.
"I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers, consultin' with the rain.
And my head I'd be scratchin', while my thoughts were busy hatchin', if I only had a brain!
I would not be just a nothin', my head all full of stuffin', my heart all full of pain.
I would dance and be merry, life would be would be a ding-a-derry, if I only had a brain!"
User avatar
wautd
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 7570
Joined: 2004-02-11 10:11am
Location: Intensive care

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by wautd »

An icon
User avatar
Iroscato
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 2359
Joined: 2011-02-07 03:04pm
Location: Great Britain (It's great, honestly!)

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Iroscato »

I’m not really one to get upset over the deaths of people I don’t know, but god fucking dammit. He was a childhood hero of mine due to his mind and resilience, and helped spark my interest in science to begin with. RIP to an immense and unique intellect and an extraordinary man.
Yeah, I've always taken the subtext of the Birther movement to be, "The rules don't count here! This is different! HE'S BLACK! BLACK, I SAY! ARE YOU ALL BLIND!?

- Raw Shark

Destiny and fate are for those too weak to forge their own futures. Where we are 'supposed' to be is irrelevent.

- SirNitram (RIP)
User avatar
ray245
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 7954
Joined: 2005-06-10 11:30pm

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by ray245 »

He was alive and well at my uni just a few months before...
Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.
User avatar
The Infidel
Jedi Master
Posts: 1285
Joined: 2009-05-07 01:32pm
Location: Norway

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by The Infidel »

A great man outlived all expectations and changed the way we look at the world.
Fittingly, he died on pi day.
Image
Image
Where am I at in the post apocalypse draft? When do I start getting picks? Because I want this guy. This guy right here. I will regret not being able to claim the quote, "The first I noticed while burning weed, so I burned it, aiming at its head first. It wriggled for about 10 seconds. Too long... I then fetched an old machete [+LITERALLY ANYTHING]"
- Raw Shark on my slug hunting
EnterpriseSovereign
Sith Marauder
Posts: 3999
Joined: 2006-05-12 12:19pm

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by EnterpriseSovereign »

Well shit, this sucks. And I have several of his books too- I expect that Theory of Everything will air as a tribute.
User avatar
Eternal_Freedom
Castellan
Posts: 10361
Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

A truly remarkable man. I was lucky enough to meet him at an event at the Science Museum in London a few years ago, he seemed...unbreakable I think is the word.

I think his greatest legacy, as far as I'm concerned, is proving that the disabled can still do amazing things. Rest in Peace Sir.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
User avatar
U.P. Cinnabar
Sith Marauder
Posts: 3845
Joined: 2016-02-05 08:11pm
Location: Aboard the RCS Princess Cecile

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by U.P. Cinnabar »

We shall not see his like again. RIP.
"Beware the Beast, Man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone amongst God's primates, he kills for sport, for lust, for greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him, drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of Death.."
—29th Scroll, 6th Verse of Ape Law
"Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”
---Doctor Christine Blasey-Ford
User avatar
darth_timon
Padawan Learner
Posts: 262
Joined: 2007-05-18 04:00pm
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by darth_timon »

A remarkable mind and a resilient soul. RIP.
User avatar
The Romulan Republic
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 21559
Joined: 2008-10-15 01:37am

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by The Romulan Republic »

The world has lost one of its brightest minds, and a man truly remarkable both for his scientific brilliance, and his perseverance in the face of adversity. May he rest in peace, and may his work never be forgotten until the stars themselves go out.

God, yesterday was quite possibly the most hellish news day since November of 2016. And we've had some doozies.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
Numa
Redshirt
Posts: 5
Joined: 2018-03-14 08:46pm

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Numa »

So he will never win a Nobel Prize.
User avatar
LadyTevar
White Mage
White Mage
Posts: 23148
Joined: 2003-02-12 10:59pm

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by LadyTevar »

Numa wrote: 2018-03-14 09:52pm So he will never win a Nobel Prize.
posthumously, like several others, maybe.
Image
Nitram, slightly high on cough syrup: Do you know you're beautiful?
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Numa
Redshirt
Posts: 5
Joined: 2018-03-14 08:46pm

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Numa »

I thought it was against the rules to receive a Nobel Prize posthumously. Who has received one?
User avatar
Sea Skimmer
Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
Posts: 37389
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
Location: Passchendaele City, HAB

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Sea Skimmer »

The problem with Hawking vs a Noble prize is two sides of one coin. One, everyone was waiting to see if he did anything even greater then what he had already before giving him one. The other is that while a brilliant man, precisely because of how advanced the subjects were he worked on many of his theories are still rather unproven and impossible to quantify, which again, favors waiting, least he win a Nobel prize for something proven wrong later, he was never always right after all Nobody is. Sadly he was at the time of his death years into working on a new paper with another physicist I forget the name of to explain his information theory for black holes, and it may well be that this paper will now never be published. That was totally going to be the work he'd get the Nobel prize for if it had panned out. Part of the reason he was working closely with another person though was because his health hasn't been great for years. He was deliberately trying to pass on as much as he could while he had time.

Amazing man, a shame he's gone now, but we are talking about a guy who was supposed to die decades ago and just decided against that plan. He doesn't need a Nobel prize to be inspiring.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
User avatar
SCRawl
Has a bad feeling about this.
Posts: 4191
Joined: 2002-12-24 03:11pm
Location: Burlington, Canada

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by SCRawl »

Numa wrote: 2018-03-14 10:30pm I thought it was against the rules to receive a Nobel Prize posthumously. Who has received one?
While not strictly true, it is effectively true. No one who is deceased can be named the winner, as it's against the rules of the prize. It used to be that if you were nominated before your demise, you could still be considered and (eventually) awarded the prize, but the rules were changed in 1974 to permit deceased persons to receive the award only if they expired after the announcement but before the actual ceremony.

So no Nobel for Professor Hawking, for this and all the reasons Sea Skimmer laid out.
73% of all statistics are made up, including this one.

I'm waiting as fast as I can.
Numa
Redshirt
Posts: 5
Joined: 2018-03-14 08:46pm

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Numa »

Yes, a great man.
User avatar
CetaMan
Youngling
Posts: 113
Joined: 2015-08-28 02:44am
Location: Alberta, Canada (Eh?)

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by CetaMan »

Considering that his projected lifespan was when he got diagnosed, he was absolutely amazing.

May you rest in peace Hawking. We won't forget you.
User avatar
Eternal_Freedom
Castellan
Posts: 10361
Joined: 2010-03-09 02:16pm
Location: CIC, Battlestar Temeraire

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

A random piece of trivia,but worth noting among his accolades. He's the only person to play himself on Star Trek (TNG's Descent, Part 1).
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
User avatar
Imperial528
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1798
Joined: 2010-05-03 06:19pm
Location: New England

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Imperial528 »

My favorite anecdote about him was from the filming of that episode. Naturally they gave him a tour of the set, and when they showed him the engineering area, he looked at the warp core and said "I'm working on that"

I'd hoped he'd live to see such a breakthrough, or a confirmation of hawking radiation. Though from what works of his I have read and the writings of those who knew him, he seemed perfectly content with the theoretical nature of his work and confident it would be proven with evidence as it was with math.

He lived so long for someone of his condition, yet as with so many, it always feels like the loss came too soon.
User avatar
Soontir C'boath
SG-14: Fuck the Medic!
Posts: 6808
Joined: 2002-07-06 12:15am
Location: Queens, NYC I DON'T FUCKING CARE IF MANHATTEN IS CONSIDERED NYC!! I'M IN IT ASSHOLE!!!
Contact:

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Soontir C'boath »

Death is only the beginner for others to take his place in the limelight of the laboratory.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."
User avatar
Sea Skimmer
Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
Posts: 37389
Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
Location: Passchendaele City, HAB

Re: Stephen Hawking has died

Post by Sea Skimmer »

Soontir C'boath wrote: 2018-03-15 10:37pm Death is only the beginner for others to take his place in the limelight of the laboratory.
Yes, and hopefully they'll be as capable of humor as Hawking was in public.

But it is also reality that with each genius who passes it becomes a little bit harder for someone else to take the place, because the problems we are trying to solve only get harder, and while humans are getting smarter and more numerous it's slow on that. The reality is we have no basis to believe or disbelieve that humans are actually capable of comprehending the universe, it might go either way. It might be that we'll need true AI linked to a human brain in combinations to do it as well, and that neither acting alone will ever achieve it for example. And that's leaving beside the question on if it's even possible to fully model the universe from within it's own existence or not.

I for one plan to live a long time to see how this pans out.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Post Reply