
Stephen Hawking 'very ill' - rms
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/04/20/hawking.health/index.html
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lesterbuck
During the 1973-74 academic year, Hawking was a visiting professor at Caltech,
and I was a junior in the physics program. The first signs something was up
were the wheelchair ramps that appeared around Bridge Laboratory, the older
physics building. Hawking made his debut by giving the weekly physics
colloquium talk in the large lecture room. At that time, he could still speak
well enough to give a lecture in his own voice (with a microphone), and he
started into some brand new, mind boggling stuff about black holes
evaporating. The entire physics faculty was there, and I sensed he had zoomed
over most their heads. Most, but not all. Feynman was sitting in the front
row, and half way through, he asks a question. It was the kind of question
that reveals he was following along just fine. The two titans proceeded to
have a back and forth exchange for a few minutes in front of the assembled
masses, and then Hawking continued with his talk. It was awesome and humbling
to witness that, and my friends and I, sitting way up in the back rows, just
shook our heads.

~~~
Scriptor
"The entire physics faculty was there, and I sensed he had zoomed over most
their heads. Most, but not all. Feynman was sitting in the front row"

Simply the sheer awesomeness (for lack of more eloquent words) of this sort of
meeting between the titans actually sent chills down my spine.

~~~
mark_h
Absolutely! My favourite bit from "A Beautiful Mind" -- the book -- is still
that early chapter describing what an astonishing collection of intelligence
Princeton had attracted at that point time (1930s): Einstein, Goedel, von
Neumann, Church, Fine,...

The pressure was so intense that the average completion time for a PhD was 2
years! (And when he arrived, Nash himself was apparently just bitter about not
being offered a scholarship by Harvard).

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delano
_Hawking was born on what turned out to be an auspicious date: January 8, 1942
-- the 300th anniversary of the death of astronomer and physicist Galileo
Galilei._

It didn't "turn out" to be an auspicious date. They'd already known the date
Galileo died. That it even makes the date "auspicious" is debatable. There are
only 365ish days to be born on. Repeats aren't a surprise.

~~~
pierrefar
Very true. In a group of 23 randomly selected people, there is just over 50%
chance that two share the same birthday. Two great articles about this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox>

<http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.birthdayprob.html>

Don't tell that to astrologers, otherwise they might make Mars align with
Jupiter and that will crash your code with an unknown exception.

~~~
param
The funniest example of how that's just probability was when this problem was
discussed in my bachelor's class of about 60 people, and the prof confidently
starts asking us for our dates of birth, and there was not even 1 matching
pair. The probability is apparently around .01%

~~~
paulgb
Out of curiosity, how did the class determine whether anyone shared a
birthday? The best way I can think of is lining up by order and then seeing if
your neighbors share your birthday. Is that how you did it? Is there a better
way to do it?

~~~
param
everyone says out their birthday in order of seating(randomly seated). If
someone hears their birthday, they shout out of turn.

I guess you were expecting an algorithm faster than O(n)? That was the best we
could do, given n processors with O(1) space each :-D

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trickjarrett
How very sad, he was an icon I looked up to as a child. I still remember first
reading his 'Brief History of Time.'

~~~
a-priori
It's a little early to refer to him in the past tense.

~~~
jodrellblank
Maybe the past tense refers to trickjarrett's childhood.

~~~
trickjarrett
That was my intended use of it. My apologies for not writing more clearly.

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k0n2ad
What a great man. He survived 40+ years with a supposedly terminal
condition... here's hoping that he can pull through again.

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ErrantX
Ugh, just seen this on Twitter.

<http://twitter.com/SaveTheGuns/status/1567102622>

I dont see why people feel they have to get their shots in when someone is too
ill to respond :( (not that it would affect him anyway - but the principle!
the principle!)

~~~
k0n2ad
Don't let it get to you man :)

~~~
ErrantX
hehe I know :P

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sown
:(

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gfrison
hang in there Stephen!!

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bhellman1
Sad story. Here is hoping Hawking gets better.

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bianco
I would really be interested in his first experience after death...

Will he be able to find a way to communicate to us?

 _That_ would be really ingenious, because all of the rest is only opinion,
and opinions are _all_ and _always_ questionable...

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elidourado
My first reaction upon seeing the headline was, "duh!"

<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ill>

~~~
k0n2ad
I actually thought that was kind of funny. He's pretty dope too.

