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Prof. Stephen Hawking: Great Scientist, Bad Gambler
astroengine writes "World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has announced that he was likely wrong about his view that the Higgs boson doesn't exist — an outcome he doesn't find very exciting — conceding that he lost a $100 wager. Speaking at the Beckman Auditorium in Caltech, Pasadena, Calif., on Tuesday (April 16), the British physicist gave a public lecture on 'The Origins of the Universe,' summarizing new revelations in modern astrophysics and cosmology. After the lecture, Caltech physicist and colleague John Preskill commented on Hawking's fondness for placing bets when faced with conflicts of physics ideas. Hawking lost a famous wager to Preskill in 2004 in a debate over whether or not black holes destroy information (theory suggests they do not, opposing Hawking's argument). 'To love Stephen Hawking is to not always agree with Stephen Hawking,' Preskill quipped. 'He's usually right, but he's not always right. Sometimes we haven't been able to resolve our differences and we've resorted to making bets it's sad to say that although Stephen Hawking is without doubt a great scientist, he's a bad gambler.'"
The Higgs boson was also wrong in its view that Stephen Hawkings doesn't exist.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
He isn't offering the money as a token to indicate how strongly he believes in an idea. $100 isn't going to break the bank for him.
What is he really doing is offering the chance to boast "I won a bet against Stephen Hawking" (You know... The guy who is regarded by most people to be the smartest person in the world) as the prize for some very extreme research.
He is giving the encouragement to push the boundaries of what we know about science in the quest of knowledge, and this is exactly what science is about.
So even when he "loses" the bet, he wins, because he has helped science go further by challenging everything that we know, instead of just following what the "smartest" people think,
Actually my recollection is that he often deliberately bets against his favored hypotheses so that in case he's wrong he still gets some reward. Hedging his bets with the universe, as it were.
From "A Brief History of Time":
"This was a form of insurance policy for me. I have done a lot of work on black holes, and it would all be wasted if it turned out that black holes do not exist. But in that case, I would have the consolation of winning my bet, which would win me four years of the magazine Private Eye. If black holes do exist, Kip will get one year of Penthouse. When we made the bet in 1975, we were 80% certain that Cygnus was a black hole. By now, I would say that we are about 95% certain, but the bet has yet to be settled."