Today every student of science is acquainted with the name of Stephen Hawking, whose full name was Stephen William Hawking. The world knows Hawking as a great Physicist, Cosmologist, Writer and Science Interpreter. He was a materialist scientist (Philosophers are divided into two great camps according to their answer to the question, which is primary, mind or nature. Those who assert the primacy of mind over nature form the camp of the idealists and consider the material world as the reflection of the idea, and the others who consider nature as primary and idea as a reflection of material reality form the camp of the materialists) who continuously endeavored to expand the horizon of science, to take science to new horizons. This year on 14th March, the famous man on the wheelchair, bid adieu to the world, his brain remained active, sharp and sound till the end when all the organs finally failed. By sheer coincidence, it's the same 14th march which is the date of birth of another great among the greatest scientists, Albert Einstein. So history named one of its days after two such great and humanitarian scientists who lived their lives in the pursuit of gaining new grounds for science and advocated for employing the scientific knowledge that mankind gained over the centuries into the service of the whole of mankind.
Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford on the 8th day of January 1942, a time when scientists were trying to see the essence of matter and the evolution of the universe through the dialectics of determinism and agnosticism. The school of determinism sees the universe and nature as knowable and its ultimate aim is the unification of thinking with being, to get to the theory of everything, agnosticism is the philosophy that challenges the possibility of an exhaustive knowledge of the world. It believes that the thing in itself or in other words, the essence of a thing is ungraspable. Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrodinger belonged to the school of determinism while Niels Bohr, Heisenberg subscribed to the school of agnosticism. It was the era of great debate in the academic circles, and it was also the era of an insatiable thirst for profit and imperialistic wars, that led to the annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the doom of nuclear holocaust loomed large over the world. Meanwhile, Hawking, like other general students completed his school education and graduated from Oxford University. It was there where his interest in science and the origin of the universe started deepening. Thereafter he entered Cambridge University for his doctoral.
Young Stephen Hawking
When he was just 22 years old and was working on the theory of relativity, there was a severe motorneuron-disease that got him under its claw and that was going to paralyze all his limbs one by one. Due to this, he suffered from depression for a little while. But his passion for science overwhelmed his depression and very soon he returned to the world of science.
In the field of Cosmology, this period was marked by an ongoing great debate on two extant theories about the origin of universe. One was the steady state theory and the other was the big bang theory. According to the steady state theory, the density of matter remains steady despite the expansions of the universe and the universe maintains its homogeneity. While according to the big bang theory, the universe originated from a state of infinite density and temperature, and thereafter the universe has been expanding continuously. In the year 1965, at the age of 23, Stephen Hawking collaborated with Roger Penrose and proposed the theory of space time singularity (Fig-1). In 1970, Taking his work forward he proved that if the universe functions in accordance with the general theory of relativity then it must also obey the singularity theorem and Alexander Friedman’s theory of Physical Cosmology.
Space-Time Singularity
The year 1973 took Hawking on a journey to Russia where he had discussiosn with two scientists, Yakov Borisovich Zeldorich and Elesy Starobinsky, which motivated him to work on quantum mechanics and quantum gravity. During this period Hawking made the conjecture of radio emissions by black hole, which is since known as Hawking Radiation. To understand the origin and dynamics of the Universe, Hawking strived to conjoin the two contradictory ends of theoretical physics: Quantum Mechanics and the Theory of Relativity, so as to establish the single equation, which he called the Theory of Everything. Hawking’s contributions were not limited to solving mathematical equations neither his interest remained academic only. In his opinion knowledge, science and philosophy are not the sole prerogatives of a privileged few but are the common inheritance and are things to be understood and discussed by every individual. In his world acclaimed book ‘A Brief History of Time’, he says –
“However if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people be able to take part in the discussion of question of why it is that we and the universe exist…”
This is one of the reasons that Hawking had been taking science and specifically astronomy among lay persons to the possible threshold of simplicity and clarity of language. He authored quite a number of books that includes half a dozen books of fiction specially dedicated to children. At the same time, Hawking countered the philosophical attacks on reason and science. Theoretical and mathematical formulations were reached at but the interpretations of these formulations were being made in an idealist or in a metaphysical way, setting aside scientific reasoning, and talking in terms of the mind of God and the absoluteness of truth. Hawking all along disproved these ideas by giving materialistic explanations. In the year 1983 Hawking collaborated with Jim Hartley and proposed the Hartley-Hawking model. The model proposed that before Planck's time the universe had no boundary on space-time. Before the big bang time did not exist and so it is meaningless to talk in terms of the beginning of the universe or absolute truth.
The proposal brought in change in the classical idea of singularity and gave a determined blow to ideological explanations. Hawking played the role of a science interpreter over a large portion of the period after 1990. Politically Hawking was a justice loving person. Hawking, like quite a few scientists, was a strong opponent of the imperialistic wars, arms proliferation and genocides. Be it the mass-killings in Vietnam or the war of aggression against Iraq or nuclear arm stockpiling.
Hawking made his protests known on a number of occasions. Hawking in his essay published in ‘The Guardian’ strongly criticised the mass-killing in Syria. Although no one can target his greatness and his one hundred percent participation in the service of humanity, he has his own philosophical limits. He was not consciously aware of the approach and method of dialectical materialism. This was the main reason why he could not reach an alternative to this rotting system. However, at the twilight of his life, he could see capitalism as the root of all ills and said in the year 2015 –
“If technology produces everything that fulfils our physical needs, still the solution will depend on the way things are distributed. Every individual can enjoy a fulfilling life and moments of leisure when the wealth produced by machines is shared equitably, otherwise most of the people will have to spend their lives in penury, so long the ownership rights lie in the hand of a minority. If such a system persists then technology will breed inequality only.”
Together with it, Stephen Hawking in his last years strongly opposed those adherents of this capitalist system, who propagate the fear of fantasies like, artificial intelligence and alien attack amongst the masses, in order to prolong their regime, by saying that Capitalism holds a greater threat to humanity than the machines. Summing up one can say that Stephen Hawking stood till the end of his life against the exploiting system. He vociferously criticized the consequences of this profit oriented system. In the field of Physics, also when the neo-Kantists and idealist thinkers and scientists led physics to the ditches of agnosticism and idealism, he carried forward the materialistic way of thinking, that also in the era when illogical claims and paragons were coming from all quarters. Even as equations were interpreted subjectively he indulged in debates all along. His death comes to every justice loving persons and to the whole human society at large as an irreplenishable loss. We will consider his contributions to science in the coming issues of The Spark.
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