To talk about who Stephen Hawking was is to refer to one of the most visionary, futuristic and brilliant minds of contemporary times. His disruptive theories in the world of physics and his constant desire to test himself revolutionized the way we understand the world. But beyond the genius of his mind, his own life was marked by the crudest obstacles, which he admirably overcame. This genius of physics was the owner of a voracious mind that knew no limits, but he also had to live with a sick body, which although it limited his mobility, could not contain his discoveries. Today at we are ready to tell you the most interesting curious facts about Stephen Hawking.
For example, Have you ever heard that Stephen Hawking got bad grades in school? Or that he was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo’s death? In the next few lines we will review some of the most peculiar curiosities about Stephen Hawking, which touch on aspects of both his academic and personal life. Join us!
8 curious facts about Stephen Hawking that you should know
1. He got bad grades at school
Let’s start this tour with the curious facts about Stephen Hawking during his school days. It turns out that, Far from being brilliant, Hawking got very poor grades, although he was very interested in knowing how things worked. and their teachers seemed to understand that they had a future genius in their midst. Despite his poor grades, Hawking earned a scholarship to Oxford University, with a near-perfect grade on his physics exam.
2. He didn’t like biology
Another curious fact about Stephen Hawking is that he was interested in mathematics from an early age, but his father wanted him to study medicine. Despite his interest in science, Stephen did not like biology at all. For him, it was too inaccurate and descriptive, and preferred to dedicate the efforts of his mind to more precise and well-defined concepts. Already at the University of Oxford he found that mathematics was not one of the main subjects, so he decided to study physics.
In fact, even within physics, he focused on the most important questions. When faced with deciding between the two tracks of particle physics, which studies the behavior of subatomic particles, versus cosmology, which studies the large universe as a whole, Hawking chose the latter. He chose cosmology despite the fact that, at the time, it was barely recognized as a legitimate field. Explaining why, he said that particle physics “seemed botanical. «There were all these particles, but no theory.»
3. At Oxford he was part of the rowing team
This is one of the curious facts about Stephen Hawking that few know, since he was not usually associated with sports. During his first year at Oxford, Hawking faced isolation and unhappiness. It seems that joining the rowing team helped him overcome it. Hawking was not a great athlete at the time. However, teams recruited smaller men like him to be coxswains, a position in which he does not row, but rather controls the direction and speed of the race. Because rowing was so important and competitive at Oxford, Hawking’s role on the team made him very popular. But the training began to affect his study habits, so he began taking “serious shortcuts” and using what he calls “creative analysis to create lab reports.”
4. At 21 he was diagnosed with ALS and given a few years to live
Once graduated, Hawking began to show symptoms of difficulty walking and general clumsiness. His family became concerned during a Christmas holiday and insisted he see a doctor. Before seeing a specialist, however, he attended a New Year’s party, where he met his future wife, Jane Wilde. She remembers being attracted to her “sense of humor and independent personality.” The following week Hawking turned 21, and shortly afterward he was admitted to the hospital, where they ran tests for two weeks to find out what was happening to him.
He was subsequently diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which is a neurological disease that causes patients to lose control of their voluntary muscles. Doctors told him he probably only had a few years to live.. Hawking remembered being shocked and wondering why this had happened to him. However, watching a child die of leukemia in the hospital made him realize that there were other people worse off than him. It was right after that, to give rise to one of Stephen Hawking’s most incredible fun facts, he decided to ask Jane out.
After that, his condition worsened, limiting his mobility more and more every day. At 23 years old and after a bout of pneumonia that led to a tracheostomy, he found it necessary to use a voice synthesizer to communicate. Such was his personality and strength, that among the curious facts about Stephen Hawking it is said that he humorously said that he did not change the voice of his synthesizer because he could not find one that he liked better.
5. He helped create the theory of the limitless universe
One of Hawking’s greatest achievements, which he shares with Jim Hartle, was arriving in 1983 at the theory that the universe has no limits. To understand the nature and shape of the universe, Hawking and Hartle combine the concepts of quantum mechanics (the study of the behavior of microscopic particles) with general relativity (Einstein’s theories about gravity and how mass curves space) to show that the universe is a contained entity and yet has no boundaries. To conceptualize this, they tell people to think of the universe as the surface of the Earth. Since it is a sphere, you can go in any direction on the Earth’s surface and never reach a corner, an edge or any boundary where the Earth can be said to have an end.
However, one important difference is that the Earth’s surface is two-dimensional (although the Earth itself is three-dimensional, the surface is only two-dimensional), while the universe is four-dimensional. Hawking explained that space-time is like the lines of latitude on the globe. Starting at the North Pole (the beginning of the universe) and moving south, the circumferences get larger, until beyond the equator, when they get smaller. This means that the universe is finite in space-time and will eventually collapse. (although that is at least 20 billion years away.)
6. He lost a bet about black holes
One of the curious facts about Stephen Hawking that also shows part of his personality: his ability to rectify. In 2004, Hawking admitted that he had made a mistake, losing a bet he made in 1997 with a fellow scientist about black holes. To understand the bet, let’s first review what black holes are. The stars are gigantic; They have so much mass that their gravity is incredibly strong. While the star is burning the fuel in its core there are no problems, because the energy it generates outwards counteracts that gravity. However, when a large enough star «dies» or burns up, gravity becomes the stronger force, causing that large star to collapse in on itself. This creates what scientists call a black hole.
Gravity is so powerful in this collapse that not even light can escape. However, Hawking proposed in 1975 that black holes are not actually black, but rather, they radiate energy. At the time, Hawking said that information was lost in the black hole and eventually evaporated. The problem was that this idea that information was lost conflicted with the rules of quantum physics, thus creating what Hawking called an “information paradox” or “black hole paradox.”
The American theoretical physicist John Preskill did not agree with the conclusion that information was lost in the black hole and in 1997 he made a bet with Hawking saying that the information could escape from them and therefore, the laws were not broken. of quantum physics. In 2004, Hawking admitted he was wrong in a speech at a scientific conference. He said that because black holes have more than one «topology,» and when one measures all the information released from all the topologies, the information is not lost.
7. He won numerous awards and distinctions
We add to the curious facts about Stephen Hawking the fact that in his long career in physics he accumulated an incredible variety of awards and distinctions. For example, in 1974 he was inducted into the Royal Society (the royal academy of science in the United Kingdom, dating back to 1660), and a year later, Pope Paul VI awarded him the XI Gold Medal of Science. He also went on to receive the Albert Einstein Prize and the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society. In 1979 he was awarded the Chair of Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge (England), a position he would hold for the next 30 years.
In the 1980s, he was invested as Commander of the British Empire, which is a rank in the United Kingdom that means little less than being knighted. He also became part of the «Companion of Honor», which is another distinction awarded in national recognition for services rendered. There can be no more than 65 members in the order at a time. In 2009, Hawking was awarded the United States’ highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But, Although Stephen Hawking achieved 12 honorary titles, the Nobel Prize was not awarded to him, at least during his lifetime.
8. The same IQ as Albert Einstein
And we close this tour of the curious facts about Stephen Hawking by telling you that this genius of modernity is comparable in intelligence to the legendary Einstein. In fact, while the average adult has an IQ of 100 points, Both Einstein and Hawking shared the surpassing figure of 160 IQ points.
And you, Did you know these curious facts about Stephen Hawking? Without a doubt, people like him demonstrate that the human being is much more than the physical body, and that it is in the greatness and possibilities of our mind where the true and supreme value of humanity is contained. If you want to continue learning about this extraordinary character in modern science, enjoy this selection of the best Stephen Hawking phrases. The best, in our opinion? «Intelligence is the ability to adapt to changes.»