NEWS: Hawking Loses Bet

CULTURE: Hawking Loses Bet

In February of 1997, Professors Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne bet Professor John P. Preskill that “when an initial pure quantum state undergoes gravitational collapse to form a black hole, the final state at the end of black hole evaporation will always be a pure quantum state.” Today, Professor Hawking conceded that he owes Professor Preskill “an encyclopedia of the winner's choice, from which information can be recovered at will.”

He will present his findings at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin, Ireland, on July 21.

Stephen Hawking is my hero.

An "encyclopedia"? Why not buy him an "internet"?

the last bet those too had the winner got a subscription to penthouse. Of course my mind might just be making this up as it is 3:30 in the morning, but I think thats right.

That Hawking guy owes me $20! Deadbeat.

"Whereas Stephen Hawking has such a large investment in General Relativity and Black Holes and desires an insurance policy, 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 of a 4-year subscription to "Private Eye", that Cygnus x-1 does not contain a black hole of mass above the Chandrasekhar Limit."

Wait a second.....

Hawkings said that black holes are not totally "black" because the vacuum of the imploding star lets out very tiny amounts of matter and energy in the form of photons, neutrinos and other subparticles. and therefor contained no information about what has been occurring inside the black hole, or how it formed.....



what a fucking RUBE!!!!!!!

i sooo want his autograph....oh ...waitaminute... seriously tho, id give a testicle to meet this man. pure fucking genius.

Can you really lose a bet if you can't provide actual proof. This could be disputed for 20 years.

he should have taken Magueijo's VSL theorem serious when he had the chance, instead of sitting on the Cambridge Mathematics throne Newton-style

my dad did a portrait of stephen hawking and sent a copy to him in oxford. he got a letter back with his (somewhat) signature and a note typed by his secretary. my dad had a boner for a week.

that just made me go "ew."

Your dad's boner???

I have mad respect for the man.

It's all about mathematics, my friend. You don't actually have to "see" the sub-atomic particles, nor do you have to interrogate them. If the theory is proven sound mathematically, that's a set of encyclopeidas.

Well, Hawking's a scientist, not a dickhead.

Take THAT, "Professor" Hawking! Not so smart NOW, are ya?

Is Hawking a Kerry fan, because he changes his mind on important things too

Certainly, within a given model, one can prove and disprove assertions... but new observations could certainly bring doubt about the validity of the model.

It would be concievable that observations could bring variations of hawkings's model in and out of fashion, such that certain variations make him win his bet and others make him lose.

To quote Father Ted on Stephen Hawking after recalling doing an impersonation of him:

"He was that last person i expected to turn up... he can move fairly fast in that wheelchair when he's angry can't he."

I prefer David Cross' imitation of Stephen Hawking with a prostitute myself.

THIS is Hawking's greatest gift to mankind.

this is the equivalent of a hip hop MC battle.

nerds fucking own.