1974, his research turned to the theory of quantum gravity. Although people haven't got a successful theory, they have found some characteristics of it. For example, space-time is not flat on the Planck scale (10-33 cm), but in a bubble state. There is no pure state in quantum gravity, the law of causality is broken, and the unknowability rises from classical statistical physics and quantum statistical physics to the third level of quantum gravity.
After 1980, his interest turned to quantum cosmology.
Hawking believes that the contribution of his life lies in that, within the framework of classical physics, the inevitability of black holes and big bang singularities has been proved, and black holes are getting bigger and bigger; However, under the framework of quantum physics, he pointed out that the black hole became smaller and smaller due to radiation, and the singularity of the Big Bang was not only smoothed out by quantum effect, but the whole universe also started from here.
Hawking's life is very legendary. In terms of scientific achievements, he is one of the most outstanding scientists in history. His contribution was made when he was confined to a wheelchair by Luger's disease for 20 years, which was really unprecedented. Because his contribution has a far-reaching impact on the concept of human beings, there are many descriptions in the media about how he struggled with total paralysis. Nevertheless, the scene when one of the translators first met him in 1979 is still vivid. It was my first time to attend the seminar on general relativity of Hawking Group in Cambridge. After the door was opened, a very weak electric sound suddenly sounded behind my head. Looking back, I saw a scrawny man reclining in an electric wheelchair and turning on the electric switch himself. The translator tries to be polite and not too surprised, but he is used to being surprised at the degree of disability of people who meet for the first time. He needs a lot of effort to raise his head. Before he lost his voice, he could only speak in a very weak deformed language, and he could only understand it after working and living with him for several months. He can't write, and reading must rely on a page-turning machine. When reading literary works, he must spread out every page on a big desk, and then he drives a wheelchair to read page by page like a silkworm eating mulberry leaves. People have to pay deep respect to the human soul who pursues the ultimate truth with such a strong will. Every day, he drives a wheelchair from his home at No.5 Cambridge West Road, crosses the beautiful Jianhe River and the ancient King's College, and arrives at the office of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in Silver Street. A slope was specially built in the department to facilitate him to take a wheelchair.
At Cambridge University, which is rich in academic tradition, he currently holds perhaps the highest professorship ever, namely Lucas Professor of Mathematics, who was once held by Newton and Dirac.
personal data
Hawking's life resume
1942 65438+/kloc-0 was born in Cambridge on October 8th.
1950, the family moved to San alban.
1959 Entering Oxford University
1962 graduated from Oxford and went to Cambridge for postgraduate study.
1963 was diagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
1965, she got a doctorate from Cambridge University and married Jane Wilde.
The eldest son Robert was born.
Daughter Lucy was born/started to use a wheelchair.
1973 published the first book "The Structure of Time and Space".
1974 announced the discovery of black hole radiation and became a member of the Royal Society.
1977 was appointed Professor of Gravitational Physics at Cambridge University.
The second son, Timothy, was born in 1979/ and was appointed Lucas Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University/published Review of General Relativity: Commemorating Einstein's Centennial Birthday.
198 1 year, he attended the Vatican cosmology conference, announced the publication of borderless ideas/hyperspace and supergravity/was awarded the Senior Knight Order of the British Empire.
1985 fell ill in Switzerland/underwent tracheotomy, lost language ability and used a computer with a sound generator.
1988 A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to the Black Hole was published/won the Wolf Foundation Award.
1989 was awarded the title of honorary knight of the British Empire.
1990 Divorce with his wife
199 1 time brief history release.
1993 black hole and baby universes were published.
■ Related Bibliography
The Biography of Stephen Hawking welcomes Hawking to visit China.
When Hawking, a world-famous scientist, arrives at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou to prepare his special speech, he will find that the Chinese version of Stephen Hawking's biography, which he values and authorizes, will also accompany him to meet with college students. This is the latest biography specially published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House to welcome Hawking's visit to China.
Michael white, the director of the Science Center of Oxford University and john gribbin, the two authors of Stephen Hawking's Biography, vividly described how he entered the scientific research field and made great achievements when he was in good health in his early years, which was not described in detail in some biographies in the past. This book, written from Hawking's childhood to the 1990s, describes some major changes and important academic discoveries in his life. The book not only records the development of Hawking's scientific genius, but also vividly describes the strong and weak side of his character. The book also reveals the publishing process of A Brief History of Time and the wonderful process of becoming a bestseller. This book is the most complete biography of Hawking at present.
(Zhao Wuping)
Hawking's other black hole
1On August 3rd, 999, stephen hawking's ex-wife Jane Hawking published her autobiography Music Moves the Stars, which lasted for many years and was gradually calmed down, boldly revealing the secret of her nearly 30-year marriage with this great genius. ...
They got married on 1965, and Jane gave him two sons and a daughter. At the same time, with Hawking's great academic success, his physical condition is inevitably deteriorating. When the couple announced their divorce on 1990, the whole world was amazed. Hawking seems to have done the most unpopular thing: he abandoned his wife who took care of him for nearly 30 years and married a young girl who took care of him.
In this new book, which is 6 10 pages thick, Jane Hawking details the hard years of struggling with this famous genius with the same famous mutant disease. She opened her heart and confessed her feelings. On the one hand, she called her ex-husband an "all-powerful king" and an "exquisite director". On the other hand, she wrote: "The desire for a person who has the body and baby-like needs of a disaster victim has become very difficult and even unnatural."
Jane said that out of strong emotional and physical desires, she began to have sex with a friend of their family, musician Jonathan Haye Jones, from 65438 to 0985. Hawking in a wheelchair acquiesced in this relationship. 1985, that is, the year when Jane and Haye Jones began to have an affair, Hawking contracted pneumonia and his life was in danger again. Desperate Jane almost turned off her husband's life support machine to end her life. But the two finally chose to break up rationally. Six years after her divorce from Hawking, Jane married Jonathan.
As we can see from the book, Jane still uses her ex-husband's surname, which is the mark left by 25 years of living together. The cover of this book is like a Christmas card from Jane to Hawking. On the gorgeous starry background, there are photos of her, Hawking and the children, which are really happy memories away from the painful reality. In the center of these photos is their wedding photo. Hawking is like her little brother. Jane is so young and beautiful, her eyes are full of optimism and infinite longing for a happy tomorrow. It's really embarrassing to read this book and think about the emotional torture experienced by the protagonist.
(Kang Kai)
■ dialogue.
"The joy of life lies in creation" —— Wu on his mentor Hawking
Xie Juan
Since August 9th, Stephen Hawking, a famous master of science, has started his trip to China. From Hawking's first visit to China to now 1985. Wu, the Chinese translator of Hawking's works, studied under Professor Hawking of Cambridge University in England and completed his doctoral thesis on cosmology under the guidance of Hawking. This time, he will accompany Hawking and act as a speech translator. The reporter interviewed Dr. Wu by telephone.
Reporter: You are the translator of Hawking's works A Brief History of Time and The Universe in the Shell. Can you tell us the origin of translating these two books?
Wu: In the 1980s, when I was studying the early universe and black holes with Hawking in Cambridge, I learned that he planned to write a popular science book on cosmology. I told him at once that I would like to translate his new book into Chinese. But until I left Cambridge, the book was still missing, and even the title had not been decided. However, what happened later proved that he kept my words in mind. 1988 April Fool's Day, I suddenly received a letter from Hawking in the United States. In the letter, he told me that he had written to his agent, zuckerman, and I was the ideal Chinese translation of his new book A Brief History of Time. Later, Hawking sent a complimentary book. Together with another translator, Xu Mingxian, I spent several months translating and submitted it to Hunan Science and Technology Publishing House in the second half of 1988. This Chinese version may be the earliest non-English version in the world. But the Chinese version is really 1992.
Last year, Zuckerman told me, "Hawking has written another new book." This is the universe in the shell that everyone has seen. As far as I know, this is the first scientific work published in more than a dozen languages around the world at the same time.
Reporter: A Brief History of Time has been translated into more than 40 languages and sold10 million copies. What do you think is the charm of this book?
Wu: Many people don't know that the fate of this book in China has actually experienced some twists and turns. When this book has been on the best-seller list in the west, the Chinese version has only 500 copies nationwide! But it can really be described as "big waves scouring the sand". Later, hundreds of popular science books on cosmology appeared in the sea of books, some of which can only sell thousands, while A Brief History of Time has been printed to 10 million, which shows that these books are not comparable to A Brief History of Time.
The success of A Brief History of Time is not accidental. I think the main reasons are as follows:
1. The universe always has an aesthetic feeling of "hiding half a face in front of us behind her guitar". The theme of this book is about the origin and destiny of the universe, which is the concern of all civilizations and the center of long-term discussion in science, philosophy and theology. These three subjects are never very happy and harmonious. The research results of Hawking School prove that science is indisputably in the leading position on this issue.
2. The author of this book is the most authoritative researcher in contemporary gravitational physics and cosmology, and his research career has accompanied and even led the development of cosmology research.
This book is full of creative passion, and anyone who is interested in creation can draw inspiration from it.
4. The author has been confined to a wheelchair for forty years because of Luger's disease, and human willpower has reached the limit on him.
A Brief History of Time reviews the ancient cosmology, the Big Bang and the standard cosmology model, the expansion cosmology model and the creation and destiny of the universe. According to Hawking's theory, his borderless universe theory tells people that the universe is created out of nothing. This completely ruled out the "first push" of God. Another part of this book is his contribution to black hole physics, especially the discovery of black hole radiation. In the book, the author is optimistic that the ultimate theory of physics is just around the corner, which is also Einstein's unified theory. By then, people can expect to understand the spirit of God. Of course, Hawking is a thorough atheist, and the meaning of "God" here is only a metaphor.
Reporter: What kind of development does Hawking's theory have in the universe in the shell?
Wu: For more than ten years since the first edition of A Brief History of Time, people have been concerned about what progress has been made in the frontier of science. Hawking's new book, The Universe in the Shell, came into being. The first chapter of this book is a brief history of relativity, and the rest chapters describe the latest progress of gravity and cosmology. The author pays attention to the future of the universe and mankind from the perspective of science and humanities. Not long ago, this book won this year's Aventis Science Book Award abroad, which is one of the most famous popular science books awards in the world.
Reporter: You have had close contact with Hawking. Can you tell us something about Hawking?
Wu: 1984 left Cambridge, 1997 revisited Hawking. After that, I contacted him mainly by email. It is difficult to talk to Hawking. He talks to people through a small computer and a voice synthesizer installed in a wheelchair. If he wants to talk to me, he must flip the switch in his hand and choose words on the computer screen of the wheelchair. His words will come from the loudspeaker behind him. That's machine-made English with an American accent. Because the machine is cold, its synthetic language has no cadence and emotional color, so it is boring. Later, I asked his nurse how he expressed his emotions, and she said that he could also control the level of his voice.
Besides research, he spends a lot of time eating and drinking water every day. First, it is because of medical needs. Second, the feeding efficiency of nurses is very low, and 80% of them are wasted.
Reporter: What kind of person is Hawking in your eyes? What influence does he have on you?
Wu: Hawking phenomenon, like the universe itself, is unique and cannot be copied. His outstanding feature is that he has investigated the origin of the universe that has plagued mankind for thousands of years, and his research results were obtained while wandering at the entrance to hell.
Hawking was diagnosed as Luger's disease in 1962. Patients with this incurable disease can only live for about two years on average. Today, 40 years later, people can say that it is the struggle with fate that makes him the most fearless fighter to explore the ultimate mystery of the universe. I think, perhaps because of his strong sense of mission to explore the universe, it led to his miracle of overcoming disability.
During my years with Hawking, he influenced my research direction and changed my attitude towards life, which can be summarized in one sentence: "The joy of life lies in creation."
Reporter: 1985 What impressed Hawking most when he visited China?
Wu: That time Hawking visited China University of Science and Technology and Beijing Normal University in Hefei. With the help of several graduate students in China, he was carried to the Great Wall, and the spectacular scene of the Great Wall deeply shocked him. He once said sincerely, "I would rather die in the Great Wall than in Cambridge." It should be said that the Great Wall left a deep impression on him.
Reporter: Can you tell us something about Hawking's visit to China?
Wu: Hawking will give a public speech on August 6th, 2005 at the Run Gymnasium of Zhejiang University. The topic of the speech is tentatively set as "The Novel World of Movies". August 16 went to Beijing to attend the 2002 International Congress of Mathematicians, and left Beijing on August 22nd.