Name: Stephen Hawking: Three publications that shaped his career
Uploaded: 2018-03-14T06:57:25.000Z
Duration: 3 min 20 s
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influential scientists  of his generation.

his impact on science and popular  culture is hard to overestimate.

In this video we're going to look at just  three publications that shaped his career.

Number one: 'The singularities of gravitational collapse and cosmology'

It was a time when physicists were still finding some of the implications of general relativity hard to swallow,

in particular the possibility of black holes  and infinitely dense singularities.

Hawking and others had already  shown that singularities should form,

at least in an abstract mathematical setting.

In fact, in his PhD thesis, Hawking had explored how the universe itself

might have originated from a  singularity at the beginning of time.

But in the 1970 paper, Hawking worked  with eminent physicist Roger Penrose

and showed that general relativity,  even in the real world,

As time went on Stephen Hawking's name would  become inextricably linked with black holes.

This paper really was called 'Black hole explosions?'  with a question mark.

He had a knack for grabbing people's attention.

It describes what came to be known as Hawking radiation

which many physicists  regard as his most important legacy.

Hawking was trying to reconcile two seemingly incompatible theories.

One was general relativity, which works well for  describing the largest scales in the universe,

the other was quantum theory, which describes the smallest scales.

Hawking realised that if you believe both theories,

the event horizon of a black hole should emit radiation.

He had shown that black holes are not actually black.

To this day physicists continue to argue over  the implications of Hawking radiation

and in particular about whether it erases information from the universe,

And finally, number three: 'A brief history of time'.

This is not a scientific paper  but rather a popular science book

and it is this book which would catapult Hawking  from prominent scientist

to probably the most famous scientist of his time.

It gave him a new platform as a science communicator,  a spokesperson and a cultural phenomenon.

Ever since people around the world have been fascinated by his story, his intellect and his tenacity.

Many now know Stephen Hawking  for his characteristic synthetic voice,

or his controversial opinions on a whole host of issues

But behind the pop-culture icon, there was a scientist whose legacy will endure.

"I hope I will be remembered for my work on black holes and the origin of the Universe

not for things like appearing on The Simpsons."