WEBVTT - Hanging with Hawking 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.400 Yeah, welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:16.000 stuff works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:17.800 This is Alice and I don't know, the science editor 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.160 how stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:22.960 science writer at how stuff works dot com. And you know, um, 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.680 it's really hard not to love Stephen Hawking. Indeed, he's 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:31.280 very lovable and intelligent, especially when you you know, you write, podcast, edit, 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.280 live and breathe science, you know, at least from nine 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.160 to six from you know, for a living. Then then 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:39.120 you know he's a pretty big deal. Yeah, he starts 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:42.000 to approach idle status, but like we're discussing earlier, it's 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:44.760 often easy to like fall into the trap of just thinking, 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.040 all right, this is a brilliant, brilliant brain in um, 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.800 you know, a a disabled body and uh, and then 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:54.800 sort of like dismiss a lot of like whatever he's 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.040 talking about. What are you talking about? Dismiss who's dismissing Hawking? 0:00:58.120 --> 0:01:01.600 Who has the audacity seeing that? Not like logically saying 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.680 like Hawking, but more like people are just kind of like, oh, yeah, 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:08.600 Stephen Hawking, he's brilliant, but without really giving a lot 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:10.640 of thought to like what he's you know, actually why 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:13.520 he's brilliant or much less thinking about the man, the 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:15.440 man that this is. This is a real dude, and 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:17.639 it's more than a theoretical physics and he's a pretty 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.840 interesting guy. Yeah. So today we thought we'd walk you 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:22.760 through a couple of things that you might not know 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.000 about Stephen Hawking. Despite the title hanging with Stephen Hockey, 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:28.880 he's not actually here in the studio. He didn't respond 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:34.240 to our interview requests. Imagine that. Um. This is based 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:37.240 on article that Jane McGrath, former co host of Stuff 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:39.680 You Miston history class back in the day, and she 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.400 wrote an article for House to Parks called ten cool 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.800 things you didn't know about Stephen Hawking. So if you 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:46.520 are really into Hawking and you want to go check 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.040 it out after you listen to our podcast, do it. Yeah. 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:50.840 We also have a quiz about Stephen Hawking. We have 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.280 two quizes about Stephen Hawking, I think. So if you 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.360 feel like Stephen Hawking already know that stuff, well bring it, 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.360 you know, come to the website and test that knowledge out. Okay, 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.960 So what is the theoretical physicist known for? What do 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.280 you know him for? Black holes? Right? Yeah, black hole 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:07.120 research and also the whole limitless universe thing where the 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:11.200 boundless universe. We'll get into that a little bit. Yeah, 0:02:11.320 --> 0:02:13.360 a little bit. We don't don't turn off the podcast. 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:14.960 We're not going to get heavy into that. But but 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:18.120 well we'll discuss it. Let's let's start out with the 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.360 day of his birth. It's kind of handy because this 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.440 guy was born three hundred years to the day after 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:28.480 Galileo died on January so that's kind of handy. I 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.040 did think about looking up to see who died on 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.040 on my birthday to see if I could somehow link 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:38.400 myself a big figure in the past, but I didn't 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:40.560 have time before the podcast. Oh that that's a bit 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.400 of a letdown. I was really getting excited. We'll say 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:47.160 that for another podcast. Um, but but yeah, that's that's 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.080 pretty big. You know. It kind of implies that he 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.440 had some big guest shoes to fill, and you know, 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.399 some people would say he kind of did. But interestingly enough, 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:59.480 this guy has never received a Nobel It is interesting. Yeah, 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.800 I mean, so he's one of the most famous physicists 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:04.600 out there, one of the most famous scientists out there, 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.160 but he's gotten lots of other awards and prizes and 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.600 recognitions that, but nothing about Yeah, so inducted into the 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.640 Royal Society at the wee age of in his thirties. 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:17.000 I think he was thirty two. He was. He was 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:19.919 a relative young feller. Although a lot of people who 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.200 are making their names in math and science, they say 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:26.639 have already done like their critical work when they're pretty young, 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:29.600 which I always find distressing because you know what, if 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.959 my best years are are gone, your best years of 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:37.680 scientific brilliance is gone. Um So. Another interesting thing is 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:42.040 he's held at Cambridge University's Lucaezian Professor of Mathematics position. 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:46.800 And this is pretty darn prestigious, especially when you consider 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.080 that Sir Isaac Newton was one of the guys who 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.240 has held it, and Charles Babbage, And do you know 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.040 who Babbage is? I needed a little refresh on Babbage. 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.080 It sounds familiar. I was just talking about him with 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.240 Jonathan Strickland of Tech Stuff this morning. He something to 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.800 do with computers, he does, he does. He was essentially 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:06.320 the guy who led to the modern computer. Yeah, well, 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.840 computers are great. But has he received an award from 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:13.600 the Pope? Indeed, I'm not sure Babbage has, but Hawking 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.719 has he and Roger Penrose did the pious eleven Gold 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:22.200 Medal for science. You know, we have to do some 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.400 some sort of something about the pope giving out medals 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:26.159 to science because this was curious. I've not heard of this, 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.640 had you? Um? Yeah, I was a famiere a little 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.279 bit with it. I know one thing we're talking about Galileo. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:33.440 Galileo did not get an award from the Pope, at 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:37.240 least not in his day and time. Yeah, and Galileo 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.719 certainly did not get the Presidential Medal of Freedom from 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.080 US President Barack Obama in two thousand nine. Yeah, what's up, Obama? 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.120 Why are you not giving Galileos dues? I think he'd 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:51.240 take him even after his death. Of course, Hawking is 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.720 no stranger to the media. Have you guys seen him? 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:55.279 Have you Have you checked him out in any of 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:57.840 his many appearances on TV or in film? Yeah, I've 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.560 seen the Futurama episode that he's in where um, he 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:02.440 like teams up with Al Gore and a few other 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.200 notable celebrities to like go back in time and um, 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.559 we're going to the future to like save the world. 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.200 And so it's pretty funny. Um. So this episode really 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.400 made an impression on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well I 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.440 do remember specifically that Philip Fry, the kind of idiot 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.960 main character and Futurama. He uh, he discovers like a 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.839 cosmic achnology and calls it a fry hole, and and 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:27.960 then Hawking like steals it from him and calls it 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:31.560 a Hawking hole. That's good stuff. He's been on The 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.080 Simpsons four separate times. I heard the connection there was 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.240 that his daughter Lucy knew one of the scriptwriters from 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.520 the Simpsons. Um and he Hawking had a funny quote 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.400 and he said, as many people know me through the 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.880 Simpsons as through science, which is kind of hilarious. And 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.960 he also said Simpsons is the best thing on American TV. Yeah. Yeah, 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:50.760 he's a big fan. You can you can kind of 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.320 tell a lot about somebody if they have at least 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.320 dug the Simpsons at one point or another. I have 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:57.520 a friend who swears that she's never seen the Simpsons, 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.200 which I find to be a lie. How and that 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.920 be she has she has a TV, she has seen TV, 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:06.400 she has seen the Simpsons. How could you not have 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:11.360 seen the Simpsons? And then, of course, um, you wrote 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.840 a recent article that was based around his Discovery series 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.240 Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, and this got a 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.320 lot of press because he was talking about some things 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.760 that people didn't want to necessarily hear about. Aliens. Yeah, 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:24.680 when we we did a podcast, yeah, talking about this 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:26.400 a little bit, but it basically boiled down to it 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.520 was a slow news week. Oil hadn't like leaked up 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:31.719 and polluted the golf yet, so everyone was like, what 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:37.320 are we gonna talk about that today? Aliens? Right? Um, 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:40.120 here's something you might not have known about Hawking. Along 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:44.400 with his whole appearances on TV and in film, he's 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.280 a children's author. Yeah, and I'm thinking, I'm kind of 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:49.640 excited about the books. So he's written too with his 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:53.279 daughter Lucy Hawking. Um. And the first one is George's 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.159 Secret Key to the Universe, and it's supposed to be 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.280 part of a trilogy built around this little boy George. 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:00.680 And the second one is out too, it's called George's 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:03.120 Cosmic Treasure Hunt. So I was curious because I was, 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.360 you know, I have some kids, know, some kids, I 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:08.960 gotta get them presents sometimes, you know, when things roll 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.480 around birthdays and such, And these started like good books 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.760 to get kids. Yeah, I mean it's supposedly like and 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:17.280 I haven't read them, but supposed to be each one 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.560 like deals with like real cosmological you know issues, like 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.120 they explain kind of how the universe works in you know, 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:27.200 far simpler terms. Yeah. They did an interview with ABC 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:29.720 Lucy and her I think Lucy and her dad did, 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.120 and Lucy says it was clear to me that there 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.560 was a wealth of science fiction available for children, but 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.920 not very much quote unquote science fact. Science fiction can 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.000 be exciting and very gripping, but it doesn't tell us 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.240 anything about the universe in which we live. We wrote 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:44.320 an adventure that is based on real science rather than 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.800 on fantasy. I don't know. I mean, do you think 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:50.800 that I kind of disagree with her on the whole 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.440 science fiction thing not being able to tell us about well, 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.800 the universe. It, No, it can, but I just don't 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:57.920 know how much I think. Maybe her point is more 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:02.440 when it comes to children's fiction, you know, you know, 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.520 like and I can't think of any like young adults 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:07.440 sci fi titles. Well, I don't know. I guess for 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:09.440 me when I was a young adult, like the sci 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:11.760 fi titles that I was into, or things like Asimov. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.760 So so yeah, if you look at it that way, 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.280 it's like, you know, Asimov is perfectly fine for many 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:20.240 young people to read, and you know, and I think 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.480 reading as Amov has inspired you know, many scientists and 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:26.360 children who just you know, went on to other things 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.840 that remained interested in it. But the book that Hawking 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:33.000 is really well known for is, of course, Brief History 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.680 of Time. Right did you read it? Um? I don't 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.600 know if I've sat down and read it cover to cover, 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:39.840 but I've definitely hit it up here and there for 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:44.360 articles or you know, to answer little questions in my head. Um. 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:45.880 They made a movie out of it as well, which 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.679 I have not seen, but yeah, and there's a hawkings 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.640 and tons of documentaries. He's written all sorts of stuff. 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:57.520 But here's something this guy, this vaunted science celebrity, maybe 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:01.880 not always the best student. Yeah, everybody loves these stories. 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.000 Everybody does love these stories because whether you're a you know, 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:07.600 a kid who just got to see you know, in 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.480 in social studies, or you're a mom, or the argument 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:14.839 when you present your battery port to your parents. Hey, 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.280 you know, Steve Jobs never finished high school. Yeah, or 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.440 like when Einstein was a kidte Robbi convenient story, and 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:25.600 hockey wasn't even really that smart. Yeah, Bill Gates stole 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.439 the painting. You know, he turned out great. But as 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:31.559 it turns out, Hawking could actually get it done in 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:35.040 the grades department. When he took his scholarship exams, he 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.520 aised them and he had a near perfect score on 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.440 the physics portion. Yeah, when it came down to, uh, 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:42.439 you know, basically, be in a situation where you're not 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:44.000 going to get to go to the college you need 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.560 to go to unless you as this test, then he 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:51.959 ponied up and did it. So that's interesting because, um, 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.040 he didn't really want to study physics. Physics represented a 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:58.120 compromise between he and his dad, good old Frank. Yeah, 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.440 his dad wanted him to be a doctor. Yeah, I 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:02.840 mean you know that's a lot of parents want their 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.440 kids to go into medicine. Yeah, make that make the 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:09.480 big money. Right. But but then the yeah, that then 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:11.560 he was more interested in mathematics, like this, the whole 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.199 the hard cold you know when I mean not cold. 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:15.880 You know, if you're in love with mathematics, it's not 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.040 really a cold thing. But numbers can be warm and 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.080 fuzzy if you understand them. Yeah, they can be, yeah, 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:23.240 your best friends of your mathematician. But he was very 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.680 and you know, there's a lot of there's a lot 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.120 of potential in mathematics. There's a and then there's a 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.040 lot of you know, exact you know, calculation, and I 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.160 think he was really into that it wasn't so psyched 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:36.080 on biology, found it rather imprecise, and so Jane was 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.280 Jane was writing. So he ultimately wound up attending Oxford 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.120 and majoring in physics. And when it came to figure 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.959 out what physics path he wanted to go down, he 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:48.480 chose cosmology. Yeah, the big questions, you know, the big 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.000 overall what is he He's a big picture guy instead 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.560 of particle physics. So why there's a pretty interesting quote. 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.280 He gave a two thousand to lecture to Cambridge's Center 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:01.120 for Mathematical Sciences and he said, came about particle physics, 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.240 but I felt that elementary particles at that time was 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:09.679 too like Botany. That's kind of rough, kind of a rough, 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:14.679 very fair to the Botan Steither, but yeah, definitely even 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:17.080 more interesting it is this man who we've come to 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.839 know in a wheelchair. I'll be a crazy advanced wheelchair 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.760 he was a rower. Yeah, first year Oxford, he went 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.160 out for the crew team. Yeah he was. Yeah, he 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:29.760 was kind of like he wasn't like one of like 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.520 the muscle rowers, but he's a cockin. He's the one 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:34.480 who sat in the front because he was kind of 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.960 a small guy even then, and so his petite build 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:40.000 was good for sitting in the front of the boat 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:44.880 when you shout directions, whoa, whoa, give me lunch or 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:48.000 whatever you yell at your rowers. So yeah, it's it's 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.480 it's important, I think to realize that this, you know, 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:52.320 this guy was once You know, if you're all young, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:55.760 young dude out there steering and not rowing a boat, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.400 well do they I mean they kind of direct Well, 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:01.480 I mean he's steering. He's not like, you know, wiggling 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:03.840 and bum from side to side to steer the boat. 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:06.080 But still he's out there. You know, it's physical exertion, 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.400 it's probably cold, and you know, well, so he had 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.440 to drop it because rowing, as some of you guys 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:12.800 probably know, it cuts into your school work, all that practice. 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.280 It's fairly intense sport. So you had to drop it. Yeah, 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.480 But once upon a time, Stephen Hawking was a rower. 0:12:18.840 --> 0:12:20.800 Let's get to the family life. There's some pretty good 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.719 stuff there. Yeah, Like the the author of our our 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.240 article about about Hawking. His wife's name was Jane. Yeah, 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.120 first wife. He met his wife Jane at a New 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:37.000 Year's party, wife Jane. According to Jane, it's funny. His wife, 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.480 Jane thought that Hawking was a funny guy and he 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.280 and she admired his independence and the sense of humor 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:45.520 is something that remains with him. I mean, obviously he's 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:48.400 cool with showing up on the Simpsons in Futurama, but 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:50.440 but you see other things he's written and even the 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.360 you know, the the TV show on Discovery of the 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.000 Hawkings Universe, and there's a certain sense of humor to 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.280 that as well. Yeah, it's pretty sharp. But Gec, he's 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.520 good with comeback. It wasn't long after he met Jane, though, 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:04.839 that he ended up going to the doctor to what 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:07.360 he was like tripping a lot. He was filmed kind 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:09.440 of clumsy, you know, like there's something wrong with his 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.560 like motor skills and h He was diagnosed with blue 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:17.800 Garrig's disease, also known as a l S. Yeah. Here, 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:22.640 I'll just attempt it. Amiotrophic lateral sclerosis and that was 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:26.240 at the wee age of twenty two. Yeah, and they 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.559 were not giving that kind of a forecast either thought 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.720 he maybe lived like twenty four or something, right, Yeah, 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.640 not necessarily long to even finish his PhD. He was 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.960 then at Cambridge. So according to Mayo Clinic, in case 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:39.400 you guys want to know the deal in a l S, 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:43.000 if you don't remember H, signs of ALIS start to 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.839 begin with your muscle twitching. Maybe you have weakness in 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.840 an arm or even slurring of speech, so that would 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:52.440 kind of explain the clumsiness. And then eventually the cells 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:56.240 that control muscle activity you know, good stuff like eating, swallowing, breathing, 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.360 all that stuff are affected and you essentially become parallels. 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.120 It's too general at yeah, it occurs in one to 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.600 three people for per one thousand, and the most common 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.880 cause of death UM if you have a LS is 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.320 a respiratory failure. So you guys won't remember back in 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:13.720 two thousand nine, there are a lot of news stories 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:15.800 when talking went at the hospital and he would fairly 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.880 serious respiratory infection UM. But he obviously survived it, and 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.840 interestingly enough, he's now he's Britain's oldest survivor of a LS. 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.120 He's a small feet because the life expectancy after your 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.280 diagnosed is a few years, not decades. Yeah, Like I 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.280 think like three to five tops, And he's been justifying 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:38.600 the odds for decades. Um. So despite the diagnosis, he 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.480 was like, whatever, I'm getting engaged to my lady Jane, 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:44.320 and he did. Yeah, And she pointed out in an 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:45.800 interview I think, or maybe it was in her book 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:49.000 that that also there was like this atmosphere of you know, 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:51.520 that we could have a nuclear war at any moment. 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:53.920 It could, it could all be over, so all the 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.360 more reason. It's like, you know, the person I love, 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:00.040 you know, has this condition, but you know, and and 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.760 then everything might you know, go up in flames tomorrow, 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:04.800 But you know, right now, we've got this moment. Let's 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.240 make the best of this. Romantic they lasted for a 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:10.840 long time, but they too wound up splitting, and then 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.400 of course Hawking married his nurse, Elaine Mason, five years later, 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.680 So this caused some chattering the folks that like to 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.320 talk about this stuff, and Hawking has since split from 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:22.400 Mason as well, and he's a couple of kids, a 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:25.600 couple of grandkids now too. Yeah, this is actually really 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:30.600 interesting right across another tidbit about Hawking's musical taste, given 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.320 his you know, his own um um you know, musical explorations. 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.280 He's really big into like Wagner and some classical stuff, right, 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:41.920 But he was hanging out with his his son Tim, 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:43.840 and his Tim was listening to a lot of depeche 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.200 Mode all right. He wound up go into the depeche 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.720 Mode cos and the and Hawking says that he's like, 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.640 actually really digs depeche Mode now, So that's that's pretty cool. 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:54.840 I like the idea of like here setting sitting around 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:56.680 kind of jamming out everybody else. Ha said his ears 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.320 were ring for maybe twenty four hours after, So that's 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:02.280 you know, but if you gotta if you're gonna rock hard, 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:06.440 sometimes you gotta to roll with the punches, right Hawking. Yeah, 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.680 And and and come on, like some of those depeche 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.240 Mode songs are pretty somber, you know, so you should 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:15.080 be able to roll with that. Indeed. So wife Jane 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:17.120 eventually wrote this tell all about what it was like 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:18.960 to be married to the brilliant scientists, and it was 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.800 called Music to Move the Stars. Six hundred and ten 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:23.920 pages of detail on what it was like to be 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.400 married to Stephen Hawking, and from when I gather from 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:31.040 reading some of the reviews, it wasn't all positive. I 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:33.720 can't imagine what it would be like to live with 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:38.440 such a ridiculously smart mind. I mean, just say it 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:42.720 caused you to, you know, lack faith in your own judgment. 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.120 Do you question yourself? I mean there have to be 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:48.280 all sorts of issues that come up with a relationship 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.640 like that, or maybe it's just two people. Yeah, I 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.920 guess I would tend to, you know, It's it's always 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.120 been my experience that if somebody is really smart about 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.840 some things, they're probably pretty dumb about others about others, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.640 you know, so it all evens out. Yeah, maybe so? 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:06.960 Maybe so. Anyway, he's since reconciled with wife Jane, and 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:09.920 she was at his bedside when he had that respiratory infection. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:12.480 Back into us and nine. But let's depart from his 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:17.320 personal life before we get too many angry emails. Um, 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.760 let's get back to the physics. Yeah, in a nutshell, 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:25.639 the boundless universe theory that he's you know, attributed with, 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:28.960 it boils down to like think of the think of 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.800 the globe, right, yes, all right, Now, if you start 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.040 running around in a circle, you know on the globe, 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:37.240 we're not in a circle. But like you started just running, 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:39.639 then you would eventually loop around to where you were before, 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:41.720 and then you'd loop around to where you're before. You 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.359 just going forever. You know, you're never going to run off, right, 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:50.200 It's limitless, at least in a two D two dimensional framework. 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:52.359 Oh man, we should have called hi flat Stanley for this. 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:54.920 We should have called him flat Stam. He was busy. 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:56.800 I think he was going to Josh and Chucks the 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.639 Trie United to his agent. Wouldn't return my call. But um, 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:02.840 but yeah, so in a in a very two dimensional sense, 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:08.040 a globe is limitless. So uh, the boundless universe deal 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:12.560 is taking that idea and expanding it to a four 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.479 D universe and the universe right yeah, where you have 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.600 you know, three spatial dimensions in one of time. Right, 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.000 So universe has a contained entity but having no boundaries. 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:26.360 So I think that your analogy really helps to kind 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:28.800 of frame that in my mind and hopefully in listeners 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.320 minds too. I mean, it's contained, yet it has no boundaries, 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:34.400 So that's tricky. Yeah, it's it's a pretty big topic. 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:35.760 We may have to cover that one on its own 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:40.000 in a future podcast. So what about the black hole business? 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.119 What about the black hole bet? Oh? Yeah, so this 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:47.080 is this is in. It had to do with whether 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.360 information is lost in a black hole, right, So that's 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.080 what Hawkings said back in He essentially said that, well, 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.680 black holes, they're not exactly black. I mean they're radiating 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:00.800 energy because we tend to think of them as these 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:07.280 yawning malls of blackness sucking everything within, you know, remotely 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:13.160 close into it, right, tremendous cosmological forces. So Hawking thought 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.280 black holes radiated energy. But here's the tricky thing. At 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:18.560 the same time, he said that information was lost in 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.680 the black hole, so it's creating this nice little paradox. Yeah, 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:27.119 and us, the theoretical physicist John Preskill did not agree. 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.720 He even made a bet with Hawking, uh as well 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:35.040 as with cal Tech theorist Kip Thorne in that the 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:39.240 information can in fact escape from black holes. And this 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.720 was nice because pres Skill's idea didn't break the laws 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:46.280 of quantum mechanics as um as Hawking and Thorne we're doing. 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:49.800 And so eventually a two thousand four rolls around. Hawking said, yeah, 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:54.560 pres Skill was right. I'm not sure that Thorne has conceded. Actually, yeah, 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:56.520 I also couldn't find like what kind of money was 0:19:56.560 --> 0:20:00.240 at stake here. I did there was an encyclopedia, and 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:04.080 the encyclopedia was to be given to the loser, so 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:07.280 the loser could look up information that he wasn't so 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.960 sure about. Oh so it's just kind of like a 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.159 kind of a petty, not a petty, but it's just 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.000 kind of like a joke result kind of. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:16.639 these are the kind of bets that sign just have. 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.520 They weren't like, it wasn't like a finger or anything. Okay, 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:23.840 that's good. So, as we mentioned earlier, Hawking also has 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.920 talked a good deal about the possibility of extraterrestrial life 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:30.119