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Did Stephen Hawking Owe a Nobel Physicist a Subscription To a Softcore Porn Magazine? (vice.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the time-to-pay-up dept.

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."

54 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. It's in the book by mad-seumas · · Score: 1

    By that wheelchair guy

    1. Re:It's in the book by Brymouse · · Score: 2

      Larry Flynt is right!

    2. Re:It's in the book by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      Oh my! I am really getting old.

      In the pre-internet days, Penthouse was considered hardcore porn, not softcore porn.

    3. Re:It's in the book by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 4, Informative

      In the pre-internet days, Penthouse was considered hardcore porn, not softcore porn.

      Maybe in Puritanville, USA, but not anywhere else. Hardcore porn has a reasonably formal definition - it basically shows people in the act of actually doing it (not just pretending to be doing it). Penthouse, on the other hand, essentially only ever showed pictures of nude and semi-nude women.

      --

      Stephan

    4. Re:It's in the book by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You are totally wrong. Penthouse switched to full on hardcore porn showing penetration years ago. Tho I have not seen one in many years so they may have changed back. Regardless, for a long time Penthouse has been fully hardcore.

    5. Re:It's in the book by Stephan+Schulz · · Score: 5, Informative

      You are totally wrong. Penthouse switched to full on hardcore porn showing penetration years ago. Tho I have not seen one in many years so they may have changed back. Regardless, for a long time Penthouse has been fully hardcore.

      Well, I'm wrong en detail - didn't know about the switch (they switched in 1998, and apparently back in 2005, according to Wikipedia - man, I'm OLD!), but pre-internet would be pre-1982, or, if you assume the web, pre-1989. About 10 years of porn on the web before Penthouse went hardcore...

      --

      Stephan

    6. Re:It's in the book by 4im · · Score: 1

      if you assume the web, pre-1989

      Ummm... since you're old enough to remember - there was no actual web around outside CERN before 1991. My own first encounters were rather around '92 or '93, with MOSAIC on some lab Macs (in Switzerland, thus close to the web's birthplace). Outside of academia, Internet access went through the likes of Compuserve or AOL, ISPs mostly came later.

      Back then you'd find pr0n rather on Usenet (binaries groups) than the web, or maybe on some FTP servers. That changed quickly, of course.

    7. Re: It's in the book by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      I grew up in Canada. Before the Internet, to me, Playboy was soft because it didn't show the lips. Penthouse and Club were hardcore because they had wide open pussy shots. Post Internet, to me, hardcore means penetration and not just spread open pink.

  2. No by iamhassi · · Score: 1

    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
    1. Re:No by sconeu · · Score: 1

      The exception to Betteridge's Law of Headlines.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    2. Re:No by SeaFox · · Score: 1

      The exception to Betteridge's Law of Headlines.

      How it is an exception to the law? The title is written in past tense because of his death. "Did Stephen Hawking Owe a Nobel Physicist a Subscription To a Softcore Porn Magazine (He Never Paid Up On)?"

      The answer is no -- because in the 1997 video Hawking states he had given him the subscription (note also past tense).
      Hawking paid his debt. So Betteridge's Law continues.

    3. Re:No by sconeu · · Score: 1

      Damn. You're right. I didn't even read the whole headline. I just saw the bet part.

      I am corrected. Thank you, sir.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  3. There were many documentaries by jd · · Score: 4, Informative

    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)
  4. Re:DISGUSTING IS RIGHT! by cstacy · · Score: 1

    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.

  5. How softcore? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Pre-decimalisation?
    They will all have their pants on.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  6. Hawking, bad at bets, good at physics by burtosis · · Score: 1

    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

    1. Re: Hawking, bad at bets, good at physics by jd · · Score: 1

      Hawking's bets were premised on the idea that it would make verification or falsification headline news and guarantee the limelight be shared.

      Since the bets were always that one of his theories was wrong, he also guaranteed a win either way.

      --
      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)
    2. Re: Hawking, bad at bets, good at physics by burtosis · · Score: 1

      Hawking's bets were premised on the idea that it would make verification or falsification headline news and guarantee the limelight be shared.

      Since the bets were always that one of his theories was wrong, he also guaranteed a win either way.

      That's what makes both science and Hawking great.

  7. Private Eye is not equivalent of The Onion by maroberts · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

    1. Re: Private Eye is not equivalent of The Onion by oobayly · · Score: 5, Informative

      Plus, The Onion literally makes the news up. The British equivalents would be The Daily Mash and News Thump.

      Private Eye is an excellent weekly magazine. I think it's funny because if it weren't, then you'd be crying when reading some of the corruption and hypocrisy they uncover.

      It's editor, Ian Hislop is also pretty damn funny, not only on TV shows (Have I got news for you), but also in enquiries:
      https://youtu.be/qgTQbmEmaXk

    2. Re:Private Eye is not equivalent of The Onion by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      It's strange that the comaprison was though to be needed. Could have just said it's a popular satirical political magazine.

    3. Re:Private Eye is not equivalent of The Onion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Whilst it does have a humorous slant on the news, buried in Private Eye are often serious reports of corruption, nepotism, government mismanagement. etc.

      Buried?

      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.

      and also

      The Onion ---- Founded: 1988>
      Private Eye -- First issue date: 1961>

      I can remember back in the 70's where you'd have to travel to Glasgow to purchase a copy of the Eye fresh off the train from London from a guy outside the station..Menzies refusing to distribute it and all that for some strange reason.

    4. Re:Private Eye is not equivalent of The Onion by Xest · · Score: 1

      Yes, the reason Private Eye dresses it up in humour is because when the lawsuits come flying they can pass it off as parody - they've probably been sued, and one more cases than almost any other publication.

      They effectively use parody laws to expose things the mainstream papers wont touch through fear of being sued.

      This is somewhat a factor of our harsh libel laws, because it's easy to sue people for libel and slander even if what they're saying is actually true because our laws favour protection against libel/slander way above free speech, we're probably one of the most imbalanced countries on those laws in that respect..

    5. Re: Private Eye is not equivalent of The Onion by bestweasel · · Score: 1

      Just a correction to your correction - it's a fortnightly magazine.

    6. Re: Private Eye is not equivalent of The Onion by oobayly · · Score: 1

      I'd probably know that if I actually subscribed to it rather than buying it in an airport, or reading it in my local pub before the quiz.

  8. The Onion != Private Eye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Penthouses and Playboy may be interchangeable. However, the Onion and Private Eye are in no way comparable.

    1. Re:The Onion != Private Eye by Teun · · Score: 1

      Sounds like you were more into Hustler...

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  9. blah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  10. Private Eye by durgledoggy · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Private Eye by Zocalo · · Score: 1

      While I agree with you main point that it's a bad comparison, The Onion does technically put a satirical and humorous slant on actual news, and although they tend to use parody more than satire in the premises for their stories the connection to real world events is usually fairly apparent. Unlike Private Eye, The Onion also blatantly makes a lot of stuff up too, of course.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    2. Re:Private Eye by taylormc · · Score: 1

      If you want a UK equivalent to The Onion, I'd suggest the Daily Mash.

    3. Re:Private Eye by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      I'd call it more equivalent to Jon Stewart's Daily Show, except that it is of course a newspaper and not a TV show. They're satirical, but they're not making stuff up.

  11. Puritan America by Kokuyo · · Score: 1

    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?

    1. Re:Puritan America by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      In the US, nudie magazines were considered inappropriate and distasteful. Shameful, a bit, abnormal, not if you look at circulation figures.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  12. Shocking - scientist does ordinary things! by fazig · · Score: 1

    Why is this even newsworthy? It only shows that he was as much human as the majority of us.

  13. this is stuff that matters by mapkinase · · Score: 1

    Apparently.

    --
    I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
  14. Difference between penthouse and playboy. by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    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.
    1. Re:Difference between penthouse and playboy. by F.Ultra · · Score: 1

      Don't confuse "The West" with the puritan UK. Lot's of Western European countries never censored or banned these magazines, except places like the UK and Norway.

    2. Re:Difference between penthouse and playboy. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Back in the late 70s, when I paid attention to these things, the Playboy models always looked like they were having more fun than the Penthouse models. (I'm not claiming they did, but that's how it was presented.)

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  15. Dunno if he paid but by Narmacil · · Score: 1

    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.

  16. The British Equivalent of The Onion... by Oxygen99 · · Score: 1

    Really?!

    --
    I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
  17. Re:really? by Teun · · Score: 1

    The statement shows either the age of the writer and/or the place he grew up.
    I'm sure with these inputs Facebook could make a nice profile on this person.

    But yeah, well after the period of the article there was a time Penthouse went tacky, Playboy was more famed for it's articles.
    Some said :)

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  18. Re:DISGUSTING IS RIGHT! by Teun · · Score: 2

    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."
  19. Way to miss the point by Maritz · · Score: 1

    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.
  20. Many witnessed the conceding of this bet by rknop · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.....

  21. Who cares? by generic_screenname · · Score: 1

    Does anyone really care that an adult bought a (perfectly legal) magazine for another adult?

    1. Re:Who cares? by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      we represent men who like porn, which is most of them. the wishes of the femi-nazis shall not rule us! (unless they're hot and want to post pics of themselves in various states of undress)

    2. Re:Who cares? by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      The problem is that the puritans don't like it.

      FTFY.

      Feminists have been split on the topic of porn, with one group thinking it's exploitation of women and another thinking that liberated women can make their own choices.

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    3. Re:Who cares? by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      women love porn too, it's called soap operas and romance novels.

  22. The serious question for slashdot... by argStyopa · · Score: 1

    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
  23. Old dupe by hwolfe · · Score: 2

    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...

  24. Is vice.com malignant cancer? by newdsfornerds · · Score: 1

    Why, yes! Yes it is!

    --
    Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
  25. Is vice dot com a malignant social justice cancer? by newdsfornerds · · Score: 1

    You betcha!

    --
    Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
  26. Re:Shoot BeauHD by painandgreed · · Score: 1

    Will someone please shoot the fucker for posting all these fucking checkout stand, bullshit stories?

    I'm sure somebody will get right on that after dealing with all the useless Anonymous Coward posters first.