according to Sky News, the guardian, the BBC and other media reports, Stephen William Hawking, a famous physicist, died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in the early morning of March 14 local time at the age of 76. As a world-famous physicist, Hawking's black hole theory and his short history of time have made indelible contributions to the discovery of science, but many people are very curious why Hawking didn't win the Nobel Prize?
To this question, Hawking himself once answered this reporter: because my black hole evaporation (which is what we usually call Hawking radiation) has not been confirmed by observation or experiment. Now that Hawking answers this question, it is obvious that he thinks that his most worthy academic achievement of the Nobel Prize in physics is Hawking radiation.
The theoretical basis of Hawking radiation is very solid, and there are many black holes in the universe, so Hawking radiation should exist. But since it has not been observed, it can only be theoretical model. Theoretical model without experiment or observation verification may still be incorrect, no matter how reasonable and beautiful. Since it may not be right, the Nobel Committee will certainly not give Hawking an award.
According to Hawking's radiation theory, a black hole can 'emit' one of a bunch of virtual particles.
In fact, Professor Shi Yu of Fudan University predicted last year that Hawking would win the Nobel Prize for the discovery of gravitational waves, because the observation results of gravitational waves really verified another important work of Hawking, that is, the area of black holes does not decrease. In response to Professor Shi Yu's prediction, before the announcement of the Nobel Prize in physics on October 3, 2017, I made the following comments on the live commentary of guoke.com: I confirm that this year's Nobel Prize in physics will be awarded for the discovery of gravitational waves, but I also think that Hawking will not win the prize, because: 1) discovery of gravitational waves is one of the most important scientific discoveries in a century Other scientific achievements and the discovery of gravitational waves put together to give a Nobel Prize are all pollution of the great achievement of discovering gravitational waves, which is totally inappropriate; 2) Hawking's greatest achievement is Hawking radiation, which is neither the area of black holes nor the singularity theorem of the universe that he and Penrose prove together. If he does not give him a Nobel Prize for his most important achievement, he must at least achieve lifelong success As for the award, it's too obvious to give a consolation award based on his theorem of no reduction of black hole area, which will make people dissatisfied.
In 2017, American physicists Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne and Barry Barish won the Nobel Prize for detecting gravitational waves.
Some people may say that since Einstein won the Nobel Prize for physics not because of relativity, but because of the photoelectric effect he found, which is obviously the smaller one among Einstein's many great contributions, especially when compared with relativity, it can be ignored, so Hawking won nothing with his secondary achievement -- the theorem of black hole area not decreasing No way! The problem is that although the photoelectric effect is Einstein's relatively unimportant scientific achievement, it is no less than that of most Nobel Prize in physics. So no one refuses to accept Einstein's photoelectric effect award. Einstein is not very happy. After all, his most important thing is relativity! But Hawking's area does not reduce the theorem It's not that important. If you win the Nobel Prize with this, many people will not accept it. But if you finally win the prize with Hawking radiation or lifetime achievement, you can accept it.
Hawking delivered a speech on NASA's 50th anniversary entitled "why we should go into space".
Finally, I'd like to tell you a true story about hawking in the eyes of other Nobel laureates?
Many years ago, I attended a very high-end meeting in Amsterdam. There was a dinner party in the middle of the meeting. It was a Royal Dutch who was the host. So only a few conference representatives were invited to attend. I was invited to represent China. At that time, there was no such thing as mobile Google map. Everyone gave me a map, and I found it according to the map. When I got to the place, I found that it was a high-class hotel, but I couldn't find the room for eating. When I was turning around, I saw George smoot, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the fluctuation of cosmic microwave background radiation, sneaking around the map. So I chased him up and asked him what he was doing. He said he had been looking for a while, but he couldn't find the room.
So I had to run to the front desk of the hotel to find out the specific location of the room and take him in. I went in and found that there was another Nobel Prize winner among the people who had arrived. Because of the discovery of CP destruction, i.e. charge parity destruction, Jim Cronin, who won the Nobel Prize in 1980, and John Ellis, director of the theory department of the European nuclear center, I said, "did you find it yourself?" they said that it took a lot of effort to find such a secret room! It's interesting to think about it. I was still at that time Young and strong, even if you touch it, but the Nobel Prize winners and all kinds of adults have to touch it. It's really different from the treatment in our country!
In 2017, Hawking experienced weightlessness in the capsule.
So we sat together. During the meal, I forgot what the reason was. Someone asked John Ellis that he had recently seen the media report that the Large Hadron Collider in the European nuclear center was going to create a black hole. It's not reliable. John Ellis said it's not reliable at all. I went on to say that you should find a way to make a black hole. John Ellis asked why? I said, Hawking is much better than my two Nobel laureates. I nodded quickly and said, yes, yes, of course. I said that's right. He's better than you, but he hasn't won the Nobel Prize. Don't you feel embarrassed? Those two are happy: then we have no way. The key is that his theory of black hole evaporation hasn't been confirmed by experiments or observations, and we can't help him!
I said that's why the European nuclear center should create a black hole, because this black hole is a quantum black hole. According to Hawking's theory, it should soon evaporate and explode. This process is easy to observe, so that Hawking can get the Nobel Prize. These two people immediately said, John, you really should find a way to make a black hole, and we will be at ease when Hawking gets the Nobel prize! I immediately said, don't worry, but what if Hawking's theory is wrong? If the black hole doesn't evaporate, it will start to eat, first the European nuclear center, then Geneva, and then the earth. That's a problem!
George smoot immediately got up, walked to the door of the room, opened the door, looked left and right, came back and sat down and said, it's safe! I asked him what he was up to, and he said to see if there were any reporters from the New York Times who were here today eavesdropping on him. If there were any, the headline of the New York Times tomorrow must be: Chinese scientists predicted that man-made black holes would eat the earth!