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.We are right back at thesearch for a theory of everything, the Holy Grail that always seemsto lie just twenty tantalizing years into the future.Hawking s chronology protection conjecture can be summed up,in its latest form, as saying that whenever any civilization, no mat-ter how advanced, tries to build a time machine, by whatevermeans, just before the device starts to operate in time machine modea beam of vacuum fluctuation radiation akin to Hawking Radiationwill build up inside the machine and destroy it.Although Thorneagrees that we cannot know for sure until physicists havefathomed in depth the laws of quantum gravity, 5 it is significantthat on this occasion he refuses to place a bet against Hawking andsays that Hawking is likely to be right. The chronology protec-tion conjecture is likely to be Hawking s last significant contribu-tion to science; appropriately, it may mark the end of time travel, ifnot the end of time. 18Stephen Hawking: Superstarhe audience of 1,500 music lovers gathered at the Aspenmusic festival in Colorado burst into spontaneousTapplause as the master of ceremonies, Professor StephenHawking, appeared on stage beneath the enormous white canopycovering the outdoor stage.Aspen is a favorite watering hole of theAmerican scientific community and a frequent venue for meetingsof the world s foremost physicists.The music festival is patronizedby many of those scientists, including Stephen Hawking, and hisfirst announcement of that evening was to introduce one of his all-time favorite pieces, the Siegfried Idyll, by Wagner, the composer hehad played loudly in his postgraduate rooms in Cambridge in 1963,a short time after learning he was suffering from a life-threateningdisease.This occasion could not have been more different.Nowlauded as the most famous scientist of his generation, he had beenspecially invited to introduce the pieces for the concert, and as soonas he appeared on the stage in his wheelchair and his synthesizedvoice boomed out across the audience he was recognized.But thesymbolism went further.304 305Stephen Hawking: Superstar This is the Siegfried Idyll, he announced,6 which Wagner wrotein 1870 to be performed on Christmas morning outside the bedroomof his new wife.I am here with my fiancée Elaine and we will bemarried in September, so I think this piece is rather appropriate. By the time of this concert in August 1995, the world had knownfor some time that Stephen Hawking s marriage to his wife of aquarter of a century, Jane, was over.Indeed, the decree absolute hadarrived at their separate homes earlier that summer, a couple ofmonths before the planned wedding date, and the press was alreadyhungry for anything it could discover about the forthcoming event.For Stephen Hawking the 1990s had become a decade of evengreater achievement than earlier years, but this success was largelyoutside of science and many would argue that his potency as a top-flight physicist had begun to wane at the end of the 1980s and thathis life was now dominated instead by public activities.The 1980shad been the decade during which he had reached a global audiencewith his best-selling book and his television appearances; thenineties were the years when he became a household name, a publicfigure comfortably discussed in the same breath as other icons ofpopular culture Hollywood stars, television celebrities, worldleaders, and pop stars.But this was only one facet of Hawking s growing fame.Heseemed to have gained a greater self-confidence from the incredibleand unexpected success of his book and he capitalized on it rapa-ciously.Stephen Hawking has always been a great self-publicist anda very determined man.He had written A Brief History of Timewith the simple intention of making enough money to pay for thehealth care he needed; his success had far exceeded his wildestexpectations.But he is of course a very quick learner and soonadapted to the great wave of acclaim that swept over him at the endof the 1980s.Ironically, this accomplishment, one that had precipi-tated the single most important change in his life, is not something 306 STEPHEN HAWKINGhe now sees as his greatest achievement.He has said that he is not proud of the success of the book but is merely pleased by it.1During the early 1990s Hawking set about adding to his literarycanon with a collection of other books.First came the book-of-the-film-of-the-book The Companion to A Brief History of Time,which was based upon the script of the Errol Morris film A BriefHistory of Time broadcast in 1992, a production that was itselfpartly based upon Hawking s original book.Next came a collectionof essays called Black Holes and Baby Universes which contained amixture of separate short pieces covering a range of subjects fromtechnical lectures to descriptions of the author s personal life andviews on religion and philosophy.Some time later, in 1996, a com-pletely new version of A Brief History of Time appeared, called TheIllustrated Brief History of Time.This was not merely an illustratedversion of the 1988 original but a very different book, which,although based on the original manuscript, was far more accessible.To date this has sold an estimated 100,000 copies in hardback.But by far the most significant commercial addition to Hawking sliterary canon was the publication, late in 2001, of The Universe ina Nutshell.In this book, Hawking considered many of the themeshe had covered in A Brief History of Time but attempted to dealwith them in clearer terms aimed squarely at a lay audience.The responses to this book were mixed.It certainly did well in themarketplace (although not in quite the same league as A BriefHistory of Time).Many found The Universe in a Nutshell far moreapproachable than Hawking s earlier work, yet some found littlemerit in it [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.We are right back at thesearch for a theory of everything, the Holy Grail that always seemsto lie just twenty tantalizing years into the future.Hawking s chronology protection conjecture can be summed up,in its latest form, as saying that whenever any civilization, no mat-ter how advanced, tries to build a time machine, by whatevermeans, just before the device starts to operate in time machine modea beam of vacuum fluctuation radiation akin to Hawking Radiationwill build up inside the machine and destroy it.Although Thorneagrees that we cannot know for sure until physicists havefathomed in depth the laws of quantum gravity, 5 it is significantthat on this occasion he refuses to place a bet against Hawking andsays that Hawking is likely to be right. The chronology protec-tion conjecture is likely to be Hawking s last significant contribu-tion to science; appropriately, it may mark the end of time travel, ifnot the end of time. 18Stephen Hawking: Superstarhe audience of 1,500 music lovers gathered at the Aspenmusic festival in Colorado burst into spontaneousTapplause as the master of ceremonies, Professor StephenHawking, appeared on stage beneath the enormous white canopycovering the outdoor stage.Aspen is a favorite watering hole of theAmerican scientific community and a frequent venue for meetingsof the world s foremost physicists.The music festival is patronizedby many of those scientists, including Stephen Hawking, and hisfirst announcement of that evening was to introduce one of his all-time favorite pieces, the Siegfried Idyll, by Wagner, the composer hehad played loudly in his postgraduate rooms in Cambridge in 1963,a short time after learning he was suffering from a life-threateningdisease.This occasion could not have been more different.Nowlauded as the most famous scientist of his generation, he had beenspecially invited to introduce the pieces for the concert, and as soonas he appeared on the stage in his wheelchair and his synthesizedvoice boomed out across the audience he was recognized.But thesymbolism went further.304 305Stephen Hawking: Superstar This is the Siegfried Idyll, he announced,6 which Wagner wrotein 1870 to be performed on Christmas morning outside the bedroomof his new wife.I am here with my fiancée Elaine and we will bemarried in September, so I think this piece is rather appropriate. By the time of this concert in August 1995, the world had knownfor some time that Stephen Hawking s marriage to his wife of aquarter of a century, Jane, was over.Indeed, the decree absolute hadarrived at their separate homes earlier that summer, a couple ofmonths before the planned wedding date, and the press was alreadyhungry for anything it could discover about the forthcoming event.For Stephen Hawking the 1990s had become a decade of evengreater achievement than earlier years, but this success was largelyoutside of science and many would argue that his potency as a top-flight physicist had begun to wane at the end of the 1980s and thathis life was now dominated instead by public activities.The 1980shad been the decade during which he had reached a global audiencewith his best-selling book and his television appearances; thenineties were the years when he became a household name, a publicfigure comfortably discussed in the same breath as other icons ofpopular culture Hollywood stars, television celebrities, worldleaders, and pop stars.But this was only one facet of Hawking s growing fame.Heseemed to have gained a greater self-confidence from the incredibleand unexpected success of his book and he capitalized on it rapa-ciously.Stephen Hawking has always been a great self-publicist anda very determined man.He had written A Brief History of Timewith the simple intention of making enough money to pay for thehealth care he needed; his success had far exceeded his wildestexpectations.But he is of course a very quick learner and soonadapted to the great wave of acclaim that swept over him at the endof the 1980s.Ironically, this accomplishment, one that had precipi-tated the single most important change in his life, is not something 306 STEPHEN HAWKINGhe now sees as his greatest achievement.He has said that he is not proud of the success of the book but is merely pleased by it.1During the early 1990s Hawking set about adding to his literarycanon with a collection of other books.First came the book-of-the-film-of-the-book The Companion to A Brief History of Time,which was based upon the script of the Errol Morris film A BriefHistory of Time broadcast in 1992, a production that was itselfpartly based upon Hawking s original book.Next came a collectionof essays called Black Holes and Baby Universes which contained amixture of separate short pieces covering a range of subjects fromtechnical lectures to descriptions of the author s personal life andviews on religion and philosophy.Some time later, in 1996, a com-pletely new version of A Brief History of Time appeared, called TheIllustrated Brief History of Time.This was not merely an illustratedversion of the 1988 original but a very different book, which,although based on the original manuscript, was far more accessible.To date this has sold an estimated 100,000 copies in hardback.But by far the most significant commercial addition to Hawking sliterary canon was the publication, late in 2001, of The Universe ina Nutshell.In this book, Hawking considered many of the themeshe had covered in A Brief History of Time but attempted to dealwith them in clearer terms aimed squarely at a lay audience.The responses to this book were mixed.It certainly did well in themarketplace (although not in quite the same league as A BriefHistory of Time).Many found The Universe in a Nutshell far moreapproachable than Hawking s earlier work, yet some found littlemerit in it [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]