Talk:Stephen Hawking/Archive 7

Religion
The article quotes Hawking who says "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/10/31/us-pope-hawking-idUSTRE49U6E220081031?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews

That quote "The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws" is a nearly perfect example of a deist belief, however the source doesn't mention the word. Would it be inappropriate (Original research) to make that comparison? Would it be more appropriate to link a relevant portion of the quote to the deism page? Or is neither action appropriate? Rainpat (talk) 16:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * That would be original research and directly contadicts the other equally well sourced quotes in which he rejects religion and clearly identifies himself as atheist. So IMHO it would be best not to add a link to deism at all. Roger (talk) 16:44, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 18 March 2012
In the section 4.1 (Acclaim) Please change sentence 2 which is factually incorrect. The sculpture unveiled in Cape Town at the African Institute of Mathematics in May 2008 was created by sculptor Eve Shepherd and is a maquette for an over life sized monument commissioned by Cambridge University which will be cited in a contemplation garden near to Professor Hawkings Office and is not a replica of the sculpture created by Ian Walters (deceased) which was unveiled at Cambridge University in 2007.

http://www.techdigest.tv/2008/10/stephen_hawking.html http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/hawking_sculpture_1_257215 http://www.eveshepherd.com

81.106.124.62 (talk) 18:11, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Not done: I can find no mention of Cape Town in any of the sources you provided. Can you provide a source which includes that detail? Thanks, Celestra (talk) 20:21, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Move "Illness" section under "Personal life"
I think the section about his Illness should be placed under Personal life. Its current prominent position near the top of the article gives the issue more visibility than it really deserves. We need to keep in mind that he is a notable scientist, but the current structure makes it look like he is a "notable sufferer of a horrible disease" rather than a Nobel multiple award winning physicist. It seems to me that the current arrangement is a consequence of the inherent systemic bias due to much of the editing being done by members of WikiProject Disability (such as myself) and the minimal participation by editors familiar with his work. Roger (talk) 07:39, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

support Fayedizard (talk) 11:04, 7 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I Agree. By the way, he was never awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics. Intrepid-NY (talk) 15:07, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry about my mistake about the Nobel - he does however have a long list of awards and honours anyway. Roger (talk) 15:49, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

✅ Roger (talk) 09:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Cape Town sculpture
I was looking at the FAC discussion where I found a brief mention of a sculpture of Hawking in Cape Town, South Africa. Based on that discussion the information was deleted from the article as unsourced. Well a few seconds with Google reveals a huge number of sources! Roger (talk) 09:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 10 April 2012
Under appearances in films and series, Stephen Hawking was in the April 2nd episode of The Big Bang Theory. This appearance is not listed.

Dragonne74 (talk) 16:02, 10 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Already done. It is currently the last statement in this section, although with a different date. This is because television series episodes are not necessarily broadcast simultaneously everywhere. Roger (talk) 16:46, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Edit conflict - beat me to it! Fayedizard (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
 * BTW the Films and series list contains only productions that he had a major role in creating - as the author. Roger (talk) 16:53, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Stephen's School
I was in the year above Stephen in the Mathematics set and he helped us with the design of the computer project on which I was a builder and the Programmer. It solved questions from Lewis Carroll in symbolic logic. It was constructed from an old relay telephone exchange. Colin Smith Cdfsmith (talk) 00:44, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Adding Stephen Hawking School under Acclaim
Should we add that there is a school for children with special needs in East London named after Professor Hawking? Perhaps under Acclaim as this is where the other buildings and institutions named after him are listed.

http://www.stephenhawking.towerhamlets.sch.uk/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Willchegwidden (talk • contribs) 00:47, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 18 April 2012
Search for "and has stated that his". Before this part there is a ref "SOS Children's Villages UK". Behind "UK" there is a dot. Remove the dot, as this does not end the sentence and is not an abbr.

93.214.236.154 (talk) 20:25, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:29, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Broken sentence?
Under "Early Life and Education", second paragraph, first and second sentences.

Currently it says: "When his father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research.[1] In 1950, Hawking and his family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire."

This seems to have been intended as one single sentence and should be changed to such as the first sentence currently does not make any sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eaalundin (talk • contribs) 22:22, 4 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I think I've fixed it (assuming I've made the right interpretation). Thanks for telling us of the problem. HiLo48 (talk) 03:24, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * You did - apologies, entirely my fault :s Fayedizard (talk) 17:33, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

As a general thing...
I've been working my way thought some of the hawking biographies (particularly the ferguson) and am using them as my main point for looking into the general flow of the article. There's been a few things so far where things have been presented in the wrong order, or we cause and effect mixed up a little. Various other bits of minor changes will probably be done on the way though - I could certainly do with people having a look at any changes made - the prose was reviewed to a very high standard recently and can only been taking the prose quality down as I take the fact quality up... Fayedizard (talk) 15:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * To move forward to FA level, prose should of course flow very smoothly. However, I think fact accuracy trumps prose quality. Binksternet (talk) 16:07, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Hawking -- Career: fix grammar
The phrase "must have began" should be "must have begun". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.4.218.250 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

✅ - Thanks! S Pat  talk 22:22, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Grammar Mistake
The last sentence of the first paragraph of 1975-Present under Career says "and promoted the idea the supergravity would help resolve many of the outstanding problems that Physicists were studying.", but it should say "and promoted the idea that supergravity would help resolve many of the outstanding problems that Physicists were studying."

SlitheryNinja (talk) 04:03, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

✅ Good catch! I corrected a misspelling of his name, too (Hawkin --> Hawking) and some spacing problems. &mdash; UncleBubba ( T @ C ) 04:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Charity
I'd like to remove the content "Hawking supports the children's charity SOS Children's Villages UK[33]" because it appears to be undue weight given to one charity - and he supports or is patron of a large number of charities - any objections? Fayedizard (talk) 11:38, 3 June 2012 (UTC)


 * I wonder if we can replace the specific statement with a general one about how much Hawking supports charities. Binksternet (talk) 17:13, 3 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Sure, if it can be sourced. Roger (talk) 17:52, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

No mention of The Grand Design
The article doesn't mention anything about his book The Grand Design except in the section Publications.  HARSH  TALK  14:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Minor correction to "In Popular Culture"
I don't believe Hawking ever appeared in an episode of Red Dwarf. According to IMDB he appeared in the documentary "'Red Dwarf' A-Z" (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0370071/), but I have no recollection of, and can find no reference to, his having appeared in an actual episode of the show.
 * It's not the in source so I've removed it.Fayedizard (talk) 06:35, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

False Image
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gross_Witten_Hawking_TIFR_2001.jpg Doesn't this looks obviously false to you? Really, look at their heads. That's bad photoshoping.--188.26.210.20 (talk) 23:57, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it coupled with the bad resolution of the image and a strong flash making the foreground subjects look quite different lighting from the background, not convinced it's fake... — raeky  t  00:15, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

dark energy
we want to suggest about dark energy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.207.51.42 (talk) 16:38, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Addition to external references requested
I'm new to wikipedia. I would like to add the following external reference: Stephen Hawking and The Power of Ideas discussion at the Perimeter Institute

(Ga for swh (talk) 12:56, 2 August 2012 (UTC))

FAC again
Hi guys, following a lovely peer review and some serious work by lots of editors over the last little while, I've put that article back to FAC. :) Fayedizard (talk) 06:57, 8 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Hello. I left a comment in a hurry on the nomination, and when I came back a few days later, I was sad to see this article fail nomination with so little discussion, which is really strange since one would think that the two or three articles on FAC that anyone has ever heard of would be the ones to garner the most attention. I haven't reviewed the article thoroughly myself, but of course I know considerable time and effort must have gone into it. Good luck with this article in the future. Leonxlin (talk) 17:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

About fixing another grammar error
Under the Space and spaceflight section it says in the first sentence of the second paragraph, "In 2007, Hawking took an zero-gravity flight..." An should be "a"

This was driving me crazy, but I can't edit semi protected articles, so could someone change that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zodiark111 (talk • contribs) 5 August 2012 17:44


 * Fixed. Thanks for noticing! --Mirokado (talk) 18:14, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 20 August 2012
add to bibliography: Mialet, Hélène (2012).

[http://books.google.com/books?id=sGCBQPZMyqIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=hawking+incorporated&source=bl&ots=VxegnoK4Li&sig=WFqbJCoQgnQdhnITYzI0G5x-kOw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=94gxUKTmB4GsiAKa6oHwBQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Hawking Incorporated: Stephen Hawking and the Anthropology of the Knowing Subject]. University of Chicago Press. ISBN-13: 979-0-226-52228-9.

67.188.228.227 (talk) 00:49, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
 * ❌ - I would include it if it was to back up/support something in the article. Ob tund Talk 02:58, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 27 August 2012
"synthesizer", not "synthesiser"

84.102.103.198 (talk) 01:39, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
 * He is British, isn't synthesiser acceptable in UK English? Materialscientist (talk) 01:44, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Higgs bet lost
I want to add mention of Hawking losing his bet on Higgs boson. Anybody can add this.220.128.111.224 (talk) 13:58, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Oooh that's an interesting one (although the source itself references sub-articles of this one) - have we got any more sources that could work with this? Fayedizard (talk) 09:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * He sadly has lost the bet :( Lots of reliable sources:, , 98.154.248.16 (talk) 03:37, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yep - I think we can say those are reliable sources. I confess I'm blanking on a suitable place to pop the fact into the article... any ideas on what type of mention we should have and where it should go? Fayedizard (talk) 17:24, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Bekenstein-Hawking vs Hawking
I propose that the radiation should only be named Hawking radiation only. Bekenstein did not believe that black holes radiate, only that the surface area of a black was proportional to its entropy. He deserves credit in a different context, just like Zel'dovich in the context of spinning black holes.

I myself have never read of it being referred to by those two names. It is not known anywhere as "Bekenstein-Hawking radiation" in Google Scholar, only "Hawking radiation." There is such a thing as Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, but that is different. The distinction of credit among various researchers during the so-called "Golden Age" can be looked up in Kip Thorne's 1994 book "Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy". Facial (talk) 20:29, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Addition to Selected publications -> films and series
"Into the Universe, with Stephen Hawking" is listed, but is not an actual link, it only has a citation to the link. "Into the Universe, with Stephen Hawking" should be made into an actual link. Here is what you can type to do so; Into the Universe, with Stephen Hawking

Minor addition to Discovery Show
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/stephen-hawking/ is the link to his new show on the Discovery Network, and should be included with the rest of the links. Thanks.

Fonseca Prize Typo
"Fonseca Prize" appears as "Fonseca Price" on this page. Thanks. Sam Blackburn (Graduate Assistant to Stephen Hawking)

SGD press release
I removed this para today...

Although a mid-2009 corporate press release said that he had chosen NeoSpeech's VoiceText speech synthesiser as his new voice, a 30 December 2011 interview with Hawking's technician indicates that Hawking is still using an older synthesiser containing a card "which dates back to the 1980s" and that any upgrade would have to be the same voice, otherwise "it wouldn't be Stephen's voice any more".

…because I don't think that it's particularly useful to the reader - although I do think it is very useful to editors in case the NeoSpeech bit gets reinserted. As always, comments welcome Fayedizard (talk) 21:33, 4 June 2012‎ (UTC)

DECTalk Link fix
In the Personal Life: Illness section, the DecTalk link should be revised. There is a page on DECtalk. 216.165.253.27 (talk) 04:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

about Stephen's disease
so he has this major neuron disease. does that mean he's dying? answer me on my talk page DevilFTW (talk) 18:13, 26 September 2012 (UTC)