In his concluding part, scientist priest Prof. Dr. Mathew Chandrankunnel CMI brings out further insights about Stephen Hawking.
By Fr. Dr. Mathew Chandrankunnel, CMI –
With mathematician Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking theorized that when the electron-positron pair are generated from energy and if the positron is falling into the accelerating disc, where electron has negative charge and positron the positive charge but of the same mass, the positron will explode in the black hole eventually leading to its evaporation due to enormous number of such continuous explosions by the falling of positrons.
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Researchers are testing on micro black holes that were created in the beginning of the universe and its eventual evaporation. However, they have not yet detected any evaporated black hole but it remains as a very strong cosmological theory. So this is Hawking’s famous contribution and that catapulted him to the main stage of astronomical theorists and an awe inspiring scientist.
Hawking also speculated about the possibility of time travel into a black hole and entering into another time and another universe. He also proposed that a black hole open into a white hole and through this worm hole we can enter into a new universe.
However, after some years later he proposed that this worm-hole theory is merely speculative and denied its existence. He also proposed that after some years the resources in the earth will be minimal and we have to travel into other planets and settle there. He was critical of the artificial intelligence and proposed that it will be dangerous for humanity and it will bring the end of humanity if we are not careful about its utility.
His last years of research was for a theory of everything. His life was depicted in the 2014 film, The Theory of Everything. He was from 1979 onwards the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, the position adorned by Newton.
In his younger years he was detected with amyotropic lateral sclerosis – ALS – a muscle weakening disease and expected to be died young. But his girlfriend Jane’s care and luck made him to survive through the disease and new technologies enabled him to speak and move. It was said that only a muscle in his finger was able to be moved and with that he used to speak through the aid of a computer and later through the movements of the eyelids that was detected by the computers. He is an embodiment of resilience and the possibility of living in spite of debilitating diseases and impending limitation.
He married Jane Wilde and has three children, namely, Robert, Lucy and Timothy. Hawking’s celebrity life and the need of care givers strained their marital life and he divorced Jane and married Elaine Mason in 1995. In 2006 he divorced Mason and picked up the old love with Jane, his children and grand children. After the divorce, Jane wrote a memoir Music to Move the Stars and later after the rapprochement, Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen.
On 14th March, Hawking died and started his travel to infinity. A private funeral took place on 31st March at Great St Mary’s Church in Cambridge and his ashes will be interned at Westminster Abbey on 15 June 2018 near to Newton. SBH = kA/4l2P will be his epitaph. This is known as the Bekenstein-Hawking Formula relating the black hole entropy and the event horizon.
Hawking was an atheist and with late journalist Hutchinson and the biologist Dawkins, tried to eliminate religion and replace it with science. They wrote and tried their best to eradicate religion from the face of the earth. Hawking wrote the book God’s Design and Dawkins God Delusion. Together they advocated that science and technology is the new religion and humanity does not need myths anymore for its existence.
However, he was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and regularly participated in its meetings. Hawking kept his atheism till to his end though it was said that after meeting Pope Francis and receiving his blessing rumored to have said, “Now I believe”. However, it is indeed a rumour and there is no truth or fact in such statements. Perhaps, if he could have spoken after his death, it would have been wise enough to listen to him and hear what he would have said, after travelling to infinity, listening to the music of the stars and encountering eternity.
Prof. Dr. Mathew Chandrankunnel CMI is Director, Ecumenical Christian Centre, Whitefield, Bangalore. Fr. Chandrankunnel is a professor of philosophy of science at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram and Christ University, both in Bangalore, India. He is the author of several books including “Philosophy of Quantum mechanics” and “Ascent to Truth: The Physics, philosophy and Religion of Galileo Galilei”. He is a scientist, philosopher and theologian.