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Did Stephen Hawking Owe a Nobel Physicist a Subscription To a Softcore Porn Magazine? (vice.com)
dmoberhaus writes: In 1974, Stephen Hawking made a bet with Nobel Prize-winning cosmologist Kip Thorne about a black hole. The wager was a subscription to the softcore porn magazine Penthouse for Thorne or a subscription to "Private Eye" (basically the British equivalent of The Onion) for Hawking. Hawking ultimately lost the bet, but did he ever pay up? Motherboard dug around to find out if Hawking settled this infamous bet.
Motherboard's Daniel Oberhaus wasn't able to get ahold of Thorne, but did manage to track down a copy of the obscure 1997 straight-to-VHS documentary called Black Holes, which is the only evidence that the wager even happened. "In 1990, Stephen Hawking happened to be visiting Los Angeles and he broke into my office and thumb printed off on this bet," Thorne recalls in the video. Oberhaus writes: "Although the status of Cygnus X-1 was an open question in the 70s, by the 90s mounting evidence had forced Hawking to concede the wager. The bet was recorded in a handwritten note scrawled on a piece of card which is shown in the film. It read: 'Whereas Stephen Hawking has a large investment in general relativity and black holes and desires an insurance policy, and whereas Kip Thorne likes to live dangerously without an insurance policy, therefore be it resolved that Stephen Hawking bets 1 year's subscription to 'Penthouse' as against Kip Thorne's wager of a 4-year subscription to 'Private Eye,' that Cygnus X-1 does not contain a black hole of mass above the Chandrasekhar limit.' 'I had given Thorne a subscription to Penthouse, much to his wife's disgust,' a smiling Hawking says in the film."
Motherboard's Daniel Oberhaus wasn't able to get ahold of Thorne, but did manage to track down a copy of the obscure 1997 straight-to-VHS documentary called Black Holes, which is the only evidence that the wager even happened. "In 1990, Stephen Hawking happened to be visiting Los Angeles and he broke into my office and thumb printed off on this bet," Thorne recalls in the video. Oberhaus writes: "Although the status of Cygnus X-1 was an open question in the 70s, by the 90s mounting evidence had forced Hawking to concede the wager. The bet was recorded in a handwritten note scrawled on a piece of card which is shown in the film. It read: 'Whereas Stephen Hawking has a large investment in general relativity and black holes and desires an insurance policy, and whereas Kip Thorne likes to live dangerously without an insurance policy, therefore be it resolved that Stephen Hawking bets 1 year's subscription to 'Penthouse' as against Kip Thorne's wager of a 4-year subscription to 'Private Eye,' that Cygnus X-1 does not contain a black hole of mass above the Chandrasekhar limit.' 'I had given Thorne a subscription to Penthouse, much to his wife's disgust,' a smiling Hawking says in the film."
What's next, backdoors?
Interested in more than one kind of black hole I guess.
By that wheelchair guy
Did the summary answer the title's question? "I had given Thorne a subscription to Penthouse, much to his wife's disgust,' a smiling Hawking says in the film."
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Penthouse is/was soft core? They showed WAYYYyy more anatomy than Playboy ever did.
That showed that piece of paper, and it appeared in several books. The original article is therefore false on the ability to verify the bet took place.
Did Hawking pay up? I know Hawking said he did and I'm fairly sure Thorne has confirmed that.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
If he did this, then what? One thing is the scientist and other is the people. But a the end, Whats the matter if he did it?
feature a supermassive black ho?
That porn RAG showed pussy up front, with pink lips open and dripping wet. If that is not disgusting, I don't know what is. I feel for Mrs. Thorne.
That was a Hubble image of a star cluster (in visible and near-infrared), and it just goes to show how dirty your mind is! I feel for Mrs. Coward.
Thorne was on, if I recall, a recent NOVA where he confirmed the bet and that he still had a penthouse from the deal.
And the vultures start circling trying to pick the man apart..
Stop being a asshole and leave the man alone!
Tell her yourself.
http://sendvid.com/usc56itb
Pre-decimalisation?
They will all have their pants on.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
That was a Hubble image of a star cluster (in visible and near-infrared), and it just goes to show how dirty your mind is! I feel for Mrs. Coward.
Is that an admission of blindness? :)
He lost a bet with Susskind as well about information conservation. Although the war of ideas was great for theoretical physics. Susskind is my favorite physicist because he puts all of his general study courses online. His class on general relativity is excellent
Whilst it does have a humorous slant on the news, buried in Private Eye are often serious reports of corruption, nepotism, government mismanagement. etc.
Private Eye is a serious journal which dresses up its allegations in humor. The Onion, so far as I'm aware, just goes for the laughs.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Lana Kane returns in Archer, April 25, 2018. Paradise Island. Let's hope she's not getting written out. Dreamland was dule because so little Lana.
This is Vice.com trying to slander Stephen Hawking. That site is garbage. Do not click the link or ever share it's content here.
Penthouses and Playboy may be interchangeable. However, the Onion and Private Eye are in no way comparable.
Given that Hawking mentioned it, and his reasoning for the bet in the book he wrote (A Brief History of Time), then i'd say yes.
He explained that he even bet against himself somewhat so that the consolation of him being wrong would be that at least he'd get a magazine subscription out of it, if i recall.
Private Eye is not "similar to The Onion". It is a satirical magazine which puts a satirical and humorous slant on actual news. It's a serious magazine.
I'm not sure how this is even remotely relevant, a small anecdote aside, even if it was a subscription to Kink.com.
As if it was shameful or abnormal to read Penthouse. Or is it the gifting of it?
Why is this even newsworthy? It only shows that he was as much human as the majority of us.
Hawking was a sexist cis white male. Therefore his discoveries are worthless. Burn his books!
Apparently.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
penthouse has pussy spreads and at least dicks inches away from said pussy. playboy doesn't.
playboy always did that so that it could claim like it's not jackoff material etc. it worked for a while, it was always bs.
some countries playboy doesn't even have tits.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
If I recall, the bet is framed on the wall in a 3 Rd floor hallway in one of the astrophysics buildings at Caltech. One of my buddies who worked on LIGO showed it to me once. I chortled breifly. Ah, science.
Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People
>basically the British equivalent of The Onion
Private eye is in a different league to the onion. The onion is mainstream and tiptoes around, private eye tells it straight. More to the point the staff is some of the sharpest people you will find period.
Really?!
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
If that were disgusting chance of human survival would be threatened.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Maybe it was mentioned in his book "A brief History of Time"? Maybe it was mentioned in a magazine such as "New Scientist" or "Scientific American"? I really don't know.
Re-read his 20 inspirational quotes https://williamreview.com/20-i...
This wager was a joke. The bet was about who was right or not. Nobody gave two fucks if the bet was paid out on or not. You'd think people who run a tech mag/web site would get that.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Stephen Hawking was at Caltech in the 1990s giving a public talk when he conceded this bet. He visited Caltech for a semester twice while I was in grad school there between 1990 and 1996. I remember one physics colloquium; I understood about the first five minutes of the talk. This was in the middle of an ongoing theoretical project where both of them were trying to answer the question: could an arbitrarily advanced civilization, constrained only by physics but not by financial or engineering considerations, construct a traversible wormhole? The question came about when Carl Sagan called up Kip to ask that question. (This was reported by Kip when he was giving a talk about black holes to the intro Physics course at Caltech; I was a TA at the time.) In the physics colloquium that Stephen was giving, he and Kip got into a bit of an argument at the end during questions, and I remember Stephen saying something along the lines of "even somebody as tough and powerful as you, Kip, wouldn't survive that".
Each time he visited, Stephen also gave a public talk, which was *extremely* well attended. Indeed, at at least one of them, I didn't make it into the auditorium where the talk itself happened, but into another auditorium on campus where they were (what we would today call) live streaming the talk. At the end, when Stephen was taking questions, it would take him a couple of minutes to compose the reply on his keypad thingy. To keep everybody from getting restless, Kip would talk to the audience. During one of these questions, Kip was telling everybody about the bet. When Stephen's answer came out, he'd decided not to answer the question, but instead conceded the bet to Kip. It was quite fun to watch.
Many people were there to see this; I'd be surprised if there weren't others reading this thread who had seen it.....
Does anyone really care that an adult bought a (perfectly legal) magazine for another adult?
Penthouse is "softcore" porn?
Look, I understand the internet has raised the bar substantially, but I remember some pretty hardcore stuff in penthouse in the early 80s, as opposed to Playboy which was pretty boringly softcore forever.
-Styopa
Fourteen year old dupe of a dupe, although some thought the bet was for a set of encyclopedias
Originally mentioned in this article: https://science.slashdot.org/s... and duped a few months later: https://science.slashdot.org/s...
Will someone please shoot the fucker for posting all these fucking checkout stand, bullshit stories?
If the allegations are true he wasn't a very "Nobel" physicist! /jk
The serious question is, why is a 1 year subscription to Penthouse equal to a 4 year subscription to Private Eye?
I see 3 possible answers:
1). The difference is in the relative 'naughtiness factor' between the magazines;
2). The difference is in overall quality and international reputation of the magazines;
3). There is no actual or implied equality. They each put in a low stakes bid, just worth enough to make the bet fun and interesting. Even the choice of magazines as opposed to a small amount of money is suggestive of this.
Why, yes! Yes it is!
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
You betcha!
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
Dumb.