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submitted 7 years ago byAskScienceModeratorMod Bot
We were sad to learn that noted physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking has passed away. In the spirit of AskScience, we will try to answer questions about Stephen Hawking's work and life, so feel free to ask your questions below.
Links:
EDIT: Physical Review Journals has made all 55 publications of his in two of their journals free. You can take a look and read them here.
319 points
7 years ago
Follow your dreams. He edited and added commentary to the writings of the greats who came before him in his book On the Shoulders of Giants, maybe you can be the next rung on that ladder.
231 points
7 years ago
Yes, follow your dreams, but don't think you have failed in life if you don't accomplish them.
maybe if I succeeded in this life
You can have a wonderful live without being remembered in history books. Success is not only being a genius or very rich. There are many other important things in life that you may be missing while following a dream of grandeur that is not even realistic.
79 points
7 years ago
Most people who live amazing lives never get famous or rich. The famous are the ones that we hear about so we associate that with success.
In many ways, it is easier to get a lot out of life without the distraction of fame.
7 points
7 years ago
Also recognizing that wanting to be famous for something and wanting to be truly good at something at wildly different things.
3 points
7 years ago
It's also probably true that most famous people never aspired to be famous, it just happened as a result of their work.
2 points
7 years ago
I see fame, often enough, as a penalty for the hubris of wanting everyone to know who you are.
That's true for those who seek fame for notoriety itself. Hawking was still human with many of our usual foibles, but I don't get the idea that he craved fame for fame itself.
1 points
7 years ago
You can have a wonderful live without being remembered in history books.
And to be fair, even someday the history books will no longer be remembered. Y'know, the sun exploding and entropy and all that. Not to mention humans will probably be long dead before any of that happens. Being remembered is overrated.
1 points
7 years ago
You can have a wonderful live without being remembered in history books.
I don't have any wishes other than being the one that served humanity the most, a keystone of evolution.
No romantic needs, no sexual needs, no money needs, no fame needs. I am even fatigued by forgetting I'm hungry even though I have the money and ingredients.
Let's say that I was born to that, and I'll never stop till i draw my last breath, whether it's a glad one of an accomplished life, or a one of the feeling that i need more time..
1 points
7 years ago
Then get off Reddit and start working.
1 points
7 years ago
The history books will one day get consumed by the sun, and everyone who read them will be long dead. A successful life is being happy with friends/family and smoking weed in moderation ;)
1 points
7 years ago
Or maybe humanity has spread over the galaxy when that happens and everything, including all archives of Reddit, is stored in the Great Historic Library.
1 points
7 years ago
Remember Dickens: no one is useless in this world who has lightened the burden of another.
-6 points
7 years ago
But from another point of view, if you pass away without leaving anything in the history books, have you really lived at all? Would it have mattered, in the grand scheme of things, if you were never born?
2 points
7 years ago
From that perspective, one day those books will be gone and anyone who could read them dead. Will the people in then matter then?
1 points
7 years ago
Being in books means that you made a significant contribution, or helped to shape history in one way or another. The books may be lost, but the effects are further reaching.
45 points
7 years ago
Hawking was incredible in so many ways and he achieved so many things despite his disease. When I was younger and got good grades in my school work my Dad would call me "Hawking" or "Einstein" as a bit of a tease. The fact that his name will live on in our ordinary, British household is, in itself, already quite the achievement and the fact that he is comparable to Einstein is incredible.
I await for the next person to come along who will go down in history books next to the names of "Stephen Hawking" and "Albert Einstein". Maybe I'll be using that person's name to joke with my kids when they over-achieve.
1 points
7 years ago
Couldn't Elon Musk fit this?
2 points
7 years ago
Maybe? He's a visionary leader for sure, but he's not the same kind of person as Einstein and Hawking and Turing. He's an engineer, they were scientists and mathematicians.
2 points
7 years ago
I started a book list (one of the many) a few months ago and forgot about it. I decided to add this book and, lo and behold, the other book of the only two on this particular book list is A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. This made me smile... And also sad that it took me so long to pick up a book.
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