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Steven Hawking Loses Bet On Black Holes?

Posted by simoniker on from the most-upsetting dept.

st1d writes "Looks like Steven Hawking might have to pay up on an old bet regarding black holes - seems his idea about them destroying information wasn't quite living up to his expectations: 'The about-turn might cost Hawking, a physicist at the University of Cambridge, an encyclopaedia because of a bet he made in 1997. More importantly, it might solve one of the long-standing puzzles in modern physics.' He's due to make a formal announcement July 21."

5 of 477 comments (clear)

  1. Winning a bet... by Dagny+Taggert · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...against Hawking would be something to tell the grandchildren about. Hell, it would be an honor to lose a bet to him.

    --
    Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
    1. Re:Winning a bet... by Zaphrod · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Steven has lost bets before but in most cases I believe it was he who proved himself wrong. He bets against what he hopes to prove thereby winning in either case.

  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. Re:Integrity by HiThere · · Score: 5, Interesting

    People who live in pain tend to be unpleasant characters. Sorry, it seems to work that way. That Hawking is able to be civil almost all the time is a great testiment to his social awareness. And his social awareness would make is "cripple" status particularly annoying to him.

    I suspect that he pep-talks himself all the time, just to get through a day. I'm certain that he will be seen by many as arrogant and intolerant. But if he were to be tolerant *of himself* he might well collapse into self-pity. Similarly if he were to loose his good (arrogant) opinion of himself.

    I am only sporadically troubled by a chronic pain. I'm told that the first thing that people notice that lets them know that I'm in pain is that I become more cutting, and my humor turns blacker. I don't notice this, myself, but it's been reported to me by someone I trust, AND used to diagnose when I was in pain, so I'm fairly certain that it's accurate.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  4. Not all he's cracked up to be... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hawking is a better than average physicist, but he is far from the best... What he is very good at is explaining advanced concepts in a way that the educated (but not advanced degree in physics holding) crowd can understand.

    He is also good at taking credit for work that is not his own. He has on 2 occasions had to apologize to professor Jimmy York for claiming Jimmies ideas as his own. Rumor has it that Jimmy says Hawking has done it again, but has not yet apologized this time.

    He and his main collaborator (Roger Penrose) are widely regarded as ass holes (actually referred to as the twin ass holes) who capitalize greatly on other peoples work without doing much themselves in the cosmology community.

    Posted AC to protect my fiancé (a cosmology PhD student), the source of most of my info on Hawking...