By Brandon Specktor

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking died peacefully today (March 14) at age 76 at his home in Cambridge,England.

[2] Hawking will be remembered by many as a cultural force—the brilliant thinker who wrote “A Brief History of Time” and played himself on “Star Trek:The Next Generation,” “The Simpsons”and “The Big Bang Theory.” He published more than 10 popular books (including a series of children’s books, cowritten with his daughter, Lucy) and was the subject of more than 15 documentary films and biopics. He did it all while living with the incurable degenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),which put him in a wheelchair for much of his life.

著名物理学家斯蒂芬·霍金3月14日在英国剑桥的家中安静辞世，享年76岁。

[2]许多人怀念霍金，是因为他代表着一种文化力量。这位杰出的思想家撰写了《时间简史》，在《星际迷航：下一代》《辛普森一家》和《生活大爆炸》中本色出演，出版了十余本热门书籍（包括和女儿露西共同撰写的一套童书），还是超过15部纪录片和传记片的主角。而与此同时，他患有一种无法治愈的退行性疾病——肌萎缩性脊髓侧索硬化症，生命中绝大多数时光都在轮椅上度过。

[3]除了励志人生和对流行文化的酷爱，霍金还将作为20世纪下半叶最重要的物理学家为人所铭记。霍金对黑洞、量子力学和宇宙起源的研究探索进一步发展了阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦、沃纳·海森堡等前辈思想家的理论，为宇宙活动提供了迄今最全面的解释。

[3] But beyond his inspirational biography and pop-culture bona fides1bona fides真诚，诚意。,Hawking will also be remembered as perhaps the most important physicist of the second half of the 20th century.Hawking’s work on black holes, quantum mechanics and the origins of the universe advanced the theories of previous thinkers like Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg2德国物理学家，量子力学创始人之一，1932年诺贝尔物理学奖得主。他提出了著名的“测不准原理”。, providing the most comprehensive explanation for the behavior of the cosmos to date.

[4] “My goal is simple,” Hawking was quoted as saying in a 1989 biography. “It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”

Here, we recall some of Hawking’s biggest theories about life, the universe and everything.

Before the Big Bang

[5] Hawking began sharing his vision of the universe in 1966 while studying physics at the University of Cambridge,when he turned in a doctoral thesis on the origin of the universe.

[6] At the time, scientists understood the universe to be expanding, though they did not know why. Hawking proposed the first description of what we now know as the Big Bang: somewhere,at the earliest edges of time, the universe began as a single point of infinitely small, massively dense space-time—a “singularity,” as Hawking described it. From this single point, our entire expanding universe burst forth, bringing with it all the laws of time and physics we understand today, Hawking said.

[4]“我的目标很简单，”1989年出版的一本传记引用霍金的话说，“就是要全面了解宇宙，了解为什么它会是现在这个样子，以及它究竟为什么会存在。”

在这里，让我们回顾一下霍金关于生命、关于宇宙、关于万事万物最重要的几个理论。

大爆炸之前

[5] 1966年，正在剑桥大学学习物理的霍金提交了有关宇宙起源的博士论文，那是他第一次分享自己对宇宙的认识。

[6]当时，科学家已经知道宇宙处在膨胀之中，可他们并不知道原因。霍金首次描述了我们今天所说的“大爆炸”：在时间的起点上，宇宙诞生了，起初只是时空中体积无穷小、密度极其高的一点——霍金称之为“奇点”。霍金说，不断膨胀的整个宇宙正是从这一点开始喷薄而出，由此有了我们今天所知道的种种时间定律和物理定律。

[7] “There is a singularity in our past, which constitutes, in some sense,a beginning to the universe,” Hawking eventually wrote in the preface of his first book, “The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time” (1973).

[8] Over the years following his graduation from the University of Cambridge,Hawking attempted to describe that universal starting point mathematically.By applying a complex model inspired by Einstein’s theory of general relativity, Hawking and his colleague Roger Penrose created the first of several singularity theorems, which described the cosmological conditions required for a singularity in space-time to exist.

Escaping a black hole

[9] Hawking had a fascination with the places where physics seemingly broke down. This included, famously,his study of black holes—stars that have collapsed into themselves, creating a vortex so gravitationally intense that not even light can escape them.

[10] While working at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, Hawking began studying black holes through the lens of thermodynamics. In 1973, he published (along with several colleagues) a paper detailing the four laws of black hole mechanics, describing the warped physics of the mysterious celestial bodies through a series of complex equations.

[7]“在我们的过去，有一个奇点，从某种意义上说，是它构成了宇宙的开端。”霍金最终将这句话写进了他的第一本著作《时空的大尺度结构》（1973）的前言中。

[8]从剑桥大学毕业后的几年中，霍金尝试从数学角度描述宇宙的起点。借助源自爱因斯坦广义相对论的一个复杂模型，霍金和同事罗杰·彭罗斯创立了最早的奇性定理，以描述时空中奇点存在所需的宇宙环境。

逃离黑洞

[9]霍金对那些物理学似乎失灵的地方有着异乎寻常的兴趣。他著名的黑洞研究即属此类。黑洞是由恒星向内塌缩形成的旋涡，其内引力极大，即使光也无法从中逃脱。

[10]在剑桥大学天文研究所工作期间，霍金开始从热力学角度研究黑洞。1973年，他和几个同事合作发表了一篇论文，详细阐述黑洞力学四定律，用一连串复杂的方程描述这种神秘天体扭曲状况下的物理现象。

[11] Hawking continued studying black holes and, soon after, had the eureka moment3eureka moment指灵光一现的时刻。“尤里卡”在希腊语中意为“我发现了”。for which he is best known.

[12] At the time, it was thought that nothing could escape the strong gravitational pull of black holes. In 1974,Hawking showed that, under certain conditions, black holes actually could create and emit subatomic particles,eventually dissolving and finally exploding in an intense burst of energy. In other words: Black holes were not completely black after all.

[13] This stream of energy radiated by black holes was later named Hawking radiation, after he described it in a 1974 paper titled “Black Hole Explosions?”

A theory of everything

[14] The discovery of Hawking radiation changed the way researchers understand the universe. By attempting to knit together the laws of gravity,thermodynamics, quantum mechanics and relativity, the study of black hole radiation also pointed to the existence of a so-called “theory of everything”—a single, unified theory of physics that described the behavior of the universe.

[11]霍金继续研究黑洞，很快迎来让他大为出名的顿悟时刻。

[12]当时，人们认为没有任何东西可以逃脱黑洞的强大引力。1974年，霍金证明，在某些情况下，黑洞其实会产生并喷射亚原子粒子，最终走向消亡，在剧烈的能量爆发中爆炸。换句话说，黑洞其实并非全黑。

[13]在1974年发表的题为《黑洞爆炸？》的论文里，霍金描述了黑洞辐射能量的现象。这种现象后来被称为霍金辐射。

万物理论

[14]霍金辐射的发现改变了研究者对宇宙的认知。黑洞辐射研究尝试将万有引力定律、热力学定律、量子力学定律和相对论结合起来，表明存在所谓的“万物理论”，一种单一、统一、能够描述宇宙活动的物理学理论。

[15]“黑洞辐射带来一些重要的谜团，我们还在非常努力地试图去弄明白答案。”理论物理学家肖恩·卡罗尔告诉《新科学家》，他在加州理工学院工作，“可以说，要想实现量子力学和引力的最终统一，霍金辐射是我们所掌握的最重要的线索，也是当今理论物理学的最大挑战。”

[15] “Black hole radiation raises serious puzzles we are still working very hard to understand,” Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology, told New Scientist. “It’s fair to say that Hawking radiation is the single biggest clue we have to the ultimate reconciliation of quantum mechanics and gravity, arguably the greatest challenge facing theoretical physics today.”

[16] Hawking continued publishing papers for the following four and a half decades, but became most famous in his later career as a science communicator.He has drawn attention lately for his concerns about humanity’s future in regards to artificial intelligence, his vocal opposition of wars and his insistence that leaders like U.S. President Donald Trump take the threats of climate change more seriously.

[17] Still, Hawking’s most lasting quotes may be about the importance of communication itself.

“Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking,” Hawking said. “It doesn’t have to be like this.Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. Withthe technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”4这段话本是歌词，出自霍金与英国摇滚乐队平克·弗洛伊德（Pink Floyd）合作创作的歌曲“Talkin’ Hawkin’”（《喋喋不休的霍金》）。

[16]之后45年，霍金仍不断发表论文，但在事业的后半段，最让霍金出名的是他作为科学传播者的工作。近来，他对人工智能兴起之后人类的未来忧心忡忡，他发声反对战争，他坚持要求包括美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在内的领导人以更严肃的态度应对气候变化带来的威胁，这些举动引人注目。

[17] 然而，霍金最不朽的名言也许是阐述“交流”本身重要性的一段话。

霍金说：“人类最伟大的成就在交谈中逐渐成形，而最大的失败则源自交谈的缺失。事情不必非得如此。我们最宏大的愿景在未来也可能变为现实。凭借我们所掌握的技术，未来将有无限可能。唯一需要做的，就是确保我们保持交谈。”