Besides pondering, what's he ever really done?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Stephen Hawking
jstachler — 16 years ago(August 06, 2009 10:42 PM)
When I think of great scientists, it's usually guys who've discovered something, or invented something, or accomplished something.
I can't think of what he's done. -
Ulan_Dhor — 14 years ago(April 17, 2011 02:05 AM)
OP's question sounds fair for me and even if he achieved brilliant results in the application of Quantum Mechanics to Black Holes these objects are pretty speculative and in no way these studies will be useful as for the developing of any technology, so how to explain a such attention by media about his figure as a physicist? I believe his illness and being confined to a wheelchair contributed to make a media phenomenon of him
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didomusic — 11 years ago(May 30, 2014 10:19 AM)
From Wikipedia:
Hawking has made major contributions to the field of general relativity. These derive from a deep understanding of what is relevant to physics and astronomy, and especially from a mastery of wholly new mathematical techniques. Following the pioneering work of Penrose he established, partly alone and partly in collaboration with Penrose, a series of successively stronger theorems establishing the fundamental result that all realistic cosmological models must possess singularities. Using similar techniques, Hawking has proved the basic theorems on the laws governing black holes: that stationary solutions of Einstein's equations with smooth event horizons must necessarily be axisymmetric; and that in the evolution and interaction of black holes, the total surface area of the event horizons must increase. In collaboration with G. Ellis, Hawking is the author of an impressive and original treatise on "Space-time in the Large".
Other important work by Hawking relates to the interpretation of cosmological observations and to the design of gravitational wave detectors. -
mshyde — 10 years ago(September 25, 2015 05:04 PM)
a lot more than a lot of us probably. Thats not meant to put anyone down, the average person does great things every day, usually without realising it.
But i do have to say, in all honesty, I wonder the same thing every time i see Sheldon Cooper.