The 4 Scientific Lessons Stephen Hawking Never Learned
Even our scientific heroes can’t be right about everything. Let’s learn the lessons that they never did.
In the 1960s, a young theoretical physicist named Stephen Hawking rose to prominence as the student of Roger Penrose. By his mid-20s, he had proven a number of important theorems in General Relativity, and was a rising star when tragedy struck: he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). As his muscles weakened and his body betrayed him, he remarkably continued and extended his work, performing brilliant and detailed calculations using methods he himself uniquely devised. As he became dependent on a wheelchair for mobility and lost nearly all motor control, he made important developments in the physics of spacetime and the field of black holes, how they radiate and decay, and whether they lose or conserve information. His popular works like A Brief History Of Time inspired generations of scientists and science enthusiasts alike. Yet despite all his achievements, there were some major scientific lessons that he died having never learned. Even our heroes fall short of perfection.
