Stephen Hawking. That man who brought us to the stars. That man who theorized with flashes, black holes and the origin of the universe. That man who discovered the singularities or breaks of space-time.
That man that made us fantasize about the possibility of traveling back in time through black holes. That man who changed the vision about the universe. That man we all admire, but we know so little, that man today has left us.
He was a man of science, a wise man of our time, a person with a character that exuded strength and charisma. He began to stand out for his brilliant mind from a very young age, seeing his life plagued by the diagnosis of a painful disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Against all odds, Stephen Hawking survived this disease, becoming an exception, a particular case. When, at age 21, during his stay in Oxford, he was diagnosed with the disease, they did not count on him living more than two years. Thus, for our fortune and against the expected, his body and his brilliant mind have continued to illuminate us for 50 more years.
No doubt this fact makes Stephen Hawking an even more admirable figure, a figure that leaves a legacy to the world that goes beyond the knowledge that generated as a theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, cosmologist and science popularizer.
The thought of Stephen Hawking through his most famous phrases
Thinking of Stephen Hawking, we could ask ourselves a lot of questions. So, perhaps, one of the most attractive and curious would be "What would it be like to think like him?". Obviously, in reality to answer this question is impossible, but in return we can investigate and approach their moral principles, their thoughts about life, about the world and about the universe.
For this we have made a compilation of his most famous phrases -in the form of ultraviolet light to see the disappearance of a star-, because we believe that granting transcendence, singularity and distinction to the thoughts he shared with the world, will help us to keep him always in mind . Undoubtedly, that is the best tribute we can make to the figure, thinker-and, why not, star-that yesterday has left us.
The message of this talk is that black holes are not as black as they are painted. They are not eternal prisons as once thought. Things can come out of a black hole from both sides and possibly into another universe. So, if you sit in a black hole, do not give up: there is a way out. "
- "It would not be a real universe if it did not house the people you love."
- "No matter how hard life may seem, because you lose all hope if you can not laugh at yourself and life in general."
- "We live in a universe governed by rational laws that we can discover and understand. Let's look up towards the stars and not down towards our feet. Try to make sense of what you see and ask yourself what makes the universe exist. Be curious "
- "I'm not afraid of death, but I'm not in a hurry to die. I have so many things I want to do before. "
- I have realized that even people who say that everything is predestined and that we can not do anything to change our destiny, keep looking at both sides before crossing the street. "
- "Intelligence is the ability to adapt to changes."
- "Humanity has a margin of a thousand years, before self-destructing at the hands of its scientific and technological advances."
- "To survive as a species, in the long run we must travel to the stars, and today we commit ourselves to the next great advance of man in the cosmos."
- "The next time you talk to someone who denies the existence of climate change, tell them to take a trip to Venus. I will take care of the expenses. "
- "Einstein was wrong when he said that 'God does not play dice with the universe.' Considering the hypothesis of black holes, God not only plays dice with the universe: sometimes he throws them where we can not see them. "
- "Life would be tragic ... if it were not funny."
- "The worst enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge".
- "The human race needs an intellectual challenge. It must be boring to be God and not have anything to discover.
- "We are only a race of primates on a minor planet of an ordinary star, but we can understand the universe. That makes us very special".
- "Quiet and silent people have the strongest and noisiest minds."
- "People who brag about their IQ are losers."
- "People will not have time for you if you're always pissed off and complaining."
- "Although there was a cloud over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I enjoyed life more in the present than I had ever enjoyed it."
- "Obviously, because of my disability, I need help. But I have always tried to overcome the limitations of my condition and lead a life as complete as possible. I have traveled all over the world, from Antarctica to zero gravity. "
Finally, we wanted to highlight a phrase that Stephen once said: "Nothing can exist forever." Perhaps in the most transcendental sense it is complicated to understand that something perpetuates eternally, but what is clear is that his legacy, his intellectual and vital heritage, will remain in the world for a long time.
NOTE TO READER: We recommend to readers the viewing of the movie "The theory of everything", which tells the life of Stephen from a different perspective. Also, it is interesting to approach their theories through books such as "The universe in a nutshell", "The secret key of the universe", "Brief history of time" or any other of its informative productions, they use adapted language to people who do not have great knowledge in astrophysics.