30 | theceomagazine.com
Hawking spent his entire life trying to figure
out how the universe worked, on its most
basic level. He transformed humanity’s
understanding of cosmology and theoretical
physics, but equally, there were times when
the professor missed the mark. Here are
just a few of his theories, some disproved,
others still potentially correct (given its
divergence from experimental physics,
many elements of theoretical physics
remain purely... theoretical).1942
Stephen William
Hawking is born on 8
January, in Oxford, UK1962
Begins postgraduate research
at Cambridge, and is
diagnosed with MND1974
Theorises the existence of
Hawking radiation; is elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society1979
Elected Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics at CambridgeHis life
THE
THEORIES
right or wrong?
THE SECOND LAW OF
BLACK HOLE DYNAMICS Wrong
Hawking suggested that the event horizon (the point where
nothing can escape the pull of a black hole) can never shrink. It
was Hawking himself who was irritated to discover this was
untrue, when he theorised the existence of the next point...HAWKING RADIATION Maybe right
Hawking suggested that empty space was in fact full of matter
and anti-matter particles constantly popping into existence and
promptly cancelling each other out. However, he thought that
these pairs could be split up by the pull of a black hole. When a
black hole sucks in the antimatter, it shrinks (disproving the
second law of black hole dynamics), and the now-isolated
matter particle is released as ‘Hawking’ radiation.