Why is not Stephen Hawking a Nobel Prize winner?
613616
You should ask this question to Nobel Prize Committee which awards the Nobel Prize.\nOriginal and significant contribution in that field plus luck, will be the key to the success, if we measure the success this way.\nWe know Stephen Hawking through reading his books. His research papers were not as popular as his books. Comparison could be made and someone else might be much more lucky.\nIt is all politic.
503211
The X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus, aptly named Cygnus X-1, is the best candidate for a black hole that we know of. Most Scientists now agree that it is a black hole. Stephen Hawking won a nobel prize for demonstrating that black holes do not in fact absorb everything that comes near them, as was previously thought, they can and do emit some particles from near their 'event horizons'. This is known as Hawking radiation.
352119
The black hole information paradox results from the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity. It was a contentious subject for science since it violated a commonly assumed tenet of science - that information cannot be destroyed. See Liouville's theorem (Hamiltonian) and unitary transformation.\n\nIn 1975, Stephen Hawking and Jacob Bekenstein showed that black holes should slowly radiate away energy, which poses a problem. From the no hair theorem one would expect the Hawking radiation to be completely independent of the material entering the black hole. However, if the material entering the black hole were a pure quantum state, the transformation of that state into the mixed state of Hawking radiation would destroy information about the original quantum state. This violates Liouville's theorem and presents a physical paradox.\n\nMore precisely, if we have an entangled pure state and we throw in one part of the entangled system into the black hole while keeping the other part outside, we get a mixed state after we take the partial trace over the interior of the black hole. But since everything within the interior of the black hole will hit the singularity within a fixed finite time, the part which is traced over partially might "disappear", never to appear again. Of course, we don't really know what goes on at singularities once quantum effects are taken into account, which is why this is conjectural and controversial.\n\nHawking was convinced however because of the simple elegance of the resulting equation which 'unified' Thermodynamics, Relativity, Gravity and Hawking's own work on the Big Bang. This annoyed many physicists, notably John Preskill, who in 1997 bet Hawking and Kip Thorne that information was not lost in black holes.\n\nThere are various ideas about how the paradox is solved. Since the 1998 discovery of the AdS/CFT correspondence, the predominant belief among physicists is that information is preserved and that Hawking radiation is not precisely thermal but receives quantum corrections. Other possibilities include the information being contained in a Planckian remnant left over at the end of Hawking radiation or a modification of the laws of quantum mechanics to allow for non-unitary time evolution.\n\nIn July 2004 Stephen Hawking announced a theory that quantum perturbations of the event horizon could allow information to escape from a black hole, which would resolve the information paradox. Basically, his argument assumes the AdS/CFT correspondence which states that an AdS black hole is dual to a thermal conformal field theory, which is unitary. However, as of 2004 the full details of the theory have yet to be published, so most peers are reserving judgment before accepting the result. When announcing his result, Hawking also conceded the 1997 bet, paying Preskill with a baseball encyclopedia (ISBN 189496327X) 'from which information can be retrieved at will'. Thorne, however, remains unconvinced of Hawking's proof and declined to contribute to the award.\n\n\n[edit]\n\nThe Equation\n\nEntropy of a black hole.\n\n\nS = &#92;frac{c^{3}A}{4 &#92;hbar G}\n\n\nS = entropy, c = speed of light, A = surface area, ħ ("h-bar") is the reduced Planck's Constant (or Dirac's Constant), G = constant of gravitation.
112266
hard question to answer.  What kind of physicist?  Because Stephen Hawking is undoubtably a great and popular theorectical physicist but theres others who have made great contributions like Edward Witten, who in fact has been dubbed by some as "the greatest living physicist."  So there are great physicists each with great contributions... It's all about perspective
724333
<<The only positive results have come from adult stem cell research!>>\n\nAre you a Scientist?  And why should I believe you and ignore numerous Nobel Laureates?\n\nThink twice, speak once.
246918
Well the fact he didn't sell his operating system, but leased it instead, shows his brilliance in a single transaction.\n\nGoing back to the question. Yes there are many people out there just as smart but the timing and opportunities have not been the same for them.\n\nThe reason I say this is that I cannot believe only one person on the planet can be this successful and so there must be other elements leading to the end result and it is the combination that makes the end result.
609940
The universal field theory is still being attempted. You see the field theory which governs large things like planets doesn't cover things which are small. By small we are talking molecular. You see when Hawking first realized that black holes aren't persistant and that they do burn out he realized that the particles within them must act differently that those of larger size (planets) and now he and some others are trying to prove a universal field theory that covers all of them. \n\nThat's about as simple as I can make it man without filling page after page.
648986
Who's Steven Hokings?  It's Stephen Hawkings.   I'd say that it's tough to say who is smarter, but Einstein has made more advances for the common man then Hawkings.
1133912
Stephen Hawking may have the credentials but he has not the votes. There are too many want-ta-bees out there and they will all be voting for themselves. Does the Sky fall? No\nIf you look at Mars. Mars had a moon which enabled it to have an atmosphere. Mars lost it's moon and lost its atmosphere. Did it fall or just go away? It went away, loss of moon, loss of gravity. Simple logic.
658711
I think it is the same reason a lot of people are obsessed with celebrities to them he is already a celebrity.  I often wonder if people are so obsessed with celebrities because they are unhappy with their on lives.  I just can't see myself jumping up and down, fainting or any of these other crazy things people do when they see a celebrities.  I do think he had a unique voice and I would have liked to see him move on but he didn't and life goes on.  I am sure he has already been signed to a label and we will be hearing from him soon.\n\nYou are right he didn't cure cancer and it's said that our priorities are not in the right place most people can't name any Nobel Peace Prize recipients but they can tell you who celeb is wearing what and what ball player is being signed by who.
1099566
I am just answering you but... I like applied physics. I don't like the theorists that lose themselves in tricky constructions. For simplicity (Occam) better believe in one and only universe. \n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation\n\nCheck the external links at wikipedia.\n\nHere is something I have found:\n:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::\nQ1 Who believes in many-worlds?\n"Political scientist" L David Raub reports a poll of 72 of the "leading cosmologists and other quantum field theorists" about the "Many-Worlds Interpretation" and gives the following response breakdown [T].\n\n        \n1) "Yes, I think MWI is true"                    58%\n2) "No, I don't accept MWI"                      18%\n3) "Maybe it's true but I'm not yet convinced"   13%\n4) "I have no opinion one way or the other"      11%\n\nAmongst the "Yes, I think MWI is true" crowd listed are Stephen Hawking and Nobel Laureates Murray Gell-Mann and Richard Feynman. Gell-Mann and Hawking recorded reservations with the name "many-worlds", but not with the theory's content. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg is also mentioned as a many-worlder, although the suggestion is not when the poll was conducted, presumably before 1988 (when Feynman died). The only "No, I don't accept MWI" named is Penrose.\n\nThe findings of this poll are in accord with other polls, that many- worlds is most popular amongst scientists who may rather loosely be described as string theorists or quantum gravitists/cosmologists. It is less popular amongst the wider scientific community who mostly remain in ignorance of it.\n\nMore detail on Weinberg's views can be found in _Dreams of a Final Theory_ or _Life in the Universe_ Scientific American (October 1994), the latter where Weinberg says about quantum theory:\n"The final approach is to take the Schrodinger equation seriously [..description of the measurement process..] In this way, a measurement causes the history of the universe for practical purposes to diverge into different non-interfering tracks, one for each possible value of the measured quantity. [...] I prefer this last approach"\n\nIn the The Quark and the Jaguar and Quantum Mechanics in the Light of Quantum Cosmology [10] Gell-Mann describes himself as an adherent to the (post-)Everett interpretation, although his exact meaning is sometimes left ambiguous.\n\nSteven Hawking is well known as a many-worlds fan and says, in an article on quantum gravity [H], that measurement of the gravitational metric tells you which branch of the wavefunction you're in and references Everett.\n\nFeynman, apart from the evidence of the Raub poll, directly favouring the Everett interpretation, always emphasized to his lecture students [F] that the "collapse" process could only be modelled by the Schrodinger wave equation (Everett's approach).\n\n[F] Jagdish Mehra The Beat of a Different Drum: The Life and Science Richard Feynman\n[H] Stephen W Hawking Black Holes and Thermodynamics Physical Review D Vol 13 #2 191-197 (1976)\n[T] Frank J Tipler The Physics of Immortality 170-171
425263
Not as high as Chuck Norris. Ever wonder why Hawking is in the wheel chair. Ask Norris.
920733
Steven Hawking has recently changed his view that no "information" could escape a black hole.  Current thinking is that as matter falls into a black hole, some radiation / information escapes across the event horizon.  So according to current thinking black holes are not completely "black"
106733
Not to beat a dead horse, but it's Edward Witten.  The reason why though is because he was able to unify the several flavors of string theory into, one mathematically stable, unifying theory.  It suggests some pretty "out there" ideas, and its called M Theory.\n\nAlso, I noticed that somebody suggested that it took several scientists to match the power of Einstein's intellect.  However, Einstein did very little to establish laws for the very small, which was governed by Quantum Mechanics, a theory that he very much disliked.  Yet Quantum Mechanics has accurately described the very small for years over years.  So I wouldn't call Einstein irreplaceable.
487508
More people know this famous equation of Einstein's than any other in human history. This famous equation is even well known to children and the mass media. But Einstein did not receive a Nobel Proze for this incredible discovery of the energy-mass equivalence principle.\n\nThe most interesting thing is that not only did Einstein did not get the Nobel prize for e=mc2, he did not get it for his Theory of Special Relativity, the discovery that time is relative and depends on the motion of your reference frame. And no, he did not receive the Nobel prize for his Theory of General Relativity either, where he discovered that space and time forms a continuum onto which matter and energy can interact and vice versa.\n\nNo, no, no. None of these great scientific discoveries of the 20th century were considered Nobel prize worthy. Instead they gave Einstein the Nobel prize for the dicovery of the "Photo-electric Effect".\n\nThis must have been the greatest insult to Einstein, because the "photo-electric effect" is the precursor to Quantum Mechanics. As a matter of fact, the term "quanta" was first coined by Einstein in his paper on the photo-electric effect.\n\nThe only problem is that Einstein hated Quantum Mechanics, and yet he is awarded a Nobel Prize to commemorate him as one of the fathers of QM. Einstein literally spent the majority of his professional career trying to disapprove Quantum Mechanics. His head-to-head arguments with Neil Bohr about the correctness of QM was infamous!\n\nIt is very sad indeed, because it turns out that QM is one of the pillar of scientific discovery of the 20th century as well. And indeed, Einstein's career waned and died as he refused to acknowledge the validity of QM. Even on his death bed, Einstein struggled to develop a unified theory that can explains all physical phenonmenon without the use of Quantum Mechanics. Of course, he was doom to fail from the beginnning because QM is a fundamental fact of nature.\n\nSo why did Einstein hate QM so much? Mainly because Einstein did not believe that "God plays with dice". One of the basic tennents of QM is that the bevahiors of the subatomic world is based on probabilities, where nothing is deterministic. And this is so contrary to Einstein's worldview about the simplicity and beauty of the natural order that he simply did not accept it. This ultimately led to his downfall as Einstein was ignored and alienated by the scientific community toward the end of his life and career.
975175
Yeh, interesting question.  Here is a good response, taken from the Boston Globe:\n\nSort of, but as is so often the case, it's a little more subtle than a simple yes/no answer.\n\nEinstein did receive the Nobel prize in physics in 1921, and the actual citation from the Nobel committee was ''for services to Theoretical Physics, and especially of the law of the photoelectric effect."\n\nDuring 1905 alone Einstein probably made enough scientific leaps to justify three Nobel prizes, writing several papers that would change the world. Certainly the case could be made that he should have had several more for work done afterward, but most people like to think of that year as ''the big one" that made certain he would get a Nobel prize no matter what.\n\nOne 1905 paper dealt with the ''photoelectric effect" and is the work that was clearly cited for the prize. In this work he showed that, although most scientists believed light acted like a wave, one must also at times treat light as being made of little chunks of electromagnetic energy called photons. This was the beginning of the strange subject of quantum mechanics which made it essential to drop many preconceived notions of what made sense in order to really understand how the world worked.\n\nAnother paper of 1905 introduced Einstein's special theory of relativity (special in that it could not deal with acceleration, but only with constant velocity's) and introduced the radical idea of merging space and time into one thing: space-time.\n\nYet another 1905 paper showed that one could infer the existence of atoms -- something still controversial at the time -- by looking at the random motion of grains of pollen in a drop of water.\n\nEinstein kept working to develop his general theory of relativity, which extended the special theory to include acceleration and gravity, but this took a bit of time to get sorted out -- it was published in 1915 and introduced the idea of curved space-time.\n\nThis list of achievements is nowhere near complete, but space restrictions make me stop here.\n\nMany people feel that the Nobel committee wanted to hedge its bets a bit by just picking out just one of the mind-blasting 1905 breakthroughs (which were all still controversial 15 years later) and lumping the rest together as ''Theoretical Physics." Oddly enough, it's the ideas of quantum mechanics, ushered in by the Nobel-cited photoelectric effect paper, that are perhaps the most controversial today!
798997
It's true that the money could have been spent on trying to resolve any of the numerous problems in the world, but from a philosophical POV, science needs to have its boundaries pushed to create new and useful developments.\n\nIf you read the novel "Earth" by David Brynn (Brinn?) it speculates on the artificial creation of black holes. I'm no quantum physicist, but it makes a plausible argument that these artificial black holes need to be constantly fed with matter, otherwise they 'die'. More importantly, that the energy produced by these entities is so vast it would pretty much solve the global energy crisis.\n\nFrom a more balanced angle though, these scare stories put out by newspapers usually have very little basis in fact, and are usually written by journalists with little or no proper scientific background or knowledge of their subject matter.\n\nI strongly recommend you read the 'Bad Science' setion of the Guardian. Look through the newspapers site or the columnist has a dedicated site (i think www.badscience.net or something like that). It's amazing how much of the stuff we're told in the name of 'science' is actually complete guff!