World's Scientists Pay Tribute to Stephen Hawking
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IN FOCUS NEWS on his site frequently complained to senior a problem. Ideally, every entry on the list would Rick Anderson, an associate dean in the officials at his institution. state reasons for its inclusion, agrees the anony- library at the University of Utah in Salt Lake Last June, a scholarly-services firm called mous site manager. “I’m not sure if I will ever City, says that the scholarly community Cabell’s International in Beaumont, Texas, have time to do that myself,” they say. does need a good list of predatory publish- launched a pay-to-view blacklist of journals Berryman says that around 200 institutions ers (Anderson did paid consulting work for it deems ‘deceptive’, listing criteria for decid- have subscribed to Cabell’s blacklist since its Cabell’s when it was planning its blacklist). ing whether titles should be added. Kathleen launch. The list contains about 8,000 journals, But it should include clear criteria and justifi- Berryman, a project manager at the firm, says including some that aren’t open access. (The cations for inclusion, explanations for removed that a lack of clear explanations for why journals firm also maintains a whitelist; some journals entries and an appeal system, he says. “To do are on the anonymously maintained blacklists is aren’t on either list, Berryman says.) it well is going to be expensive and difficult.” ■ PEOPLE World’s scientists pay tribute to Stephen Hawking The physicist and science icon died at his home in Cambridge, UK, aged 76. BY DAVIDE CASTELVECCHI holes were not truly black. This emission, he reasoned, should tephen Hawking, one of the most ultimately lead a black hole to shrink and influential physicists of the twenti- disappear (S. W. Hawking Nature 248, eth century and perhaps the most 30–31; 1974). Even more shocking to TOM PILSTON/PANOS TOM Scelebrated icon of contemporary science, researchers was Hawking’s realization in died on 14 March at the age of 76. 1976 that Hawking radiation should erase Since his early twenties, Hawking had information from the Universe, in appar- lived with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ent contradiction to some of the basic (ALS), a disease in which motor neu- tenets of quantum theory (S. W. Hawking rons die, leaving the brain incapable Phys. Rev. D 14, 2460–2473; 1976). “The of controlling muscles. His health had importance of this work was not so much reportedly been deteriorating. the effect itself, but that he was able to pro- Hawking’s death was marked by vide the one clear-cut physical implication tributes from scientists worldwide. “The that we know of which brings together reaction among physicists is just profound the two great revolutions of twentieth- shock and sadness,” says Malcolm Perry, century physics, namely, general relativity a theoretical physicist at the University of and quantum mechanics,” says Penrose. Cambridge, UK, and a student of Hawk- Two years ago, together with Perry ing’s in the early 1970s. “He was a truly and Andrew Strominger at Harvard Uni- extraordinary man,” says Roger Penrose, versity in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a theoretical physicist at the University of Stephen Hawking, giant of cosmology, in 2013. Hawking began to sketch a possible way Oxford, UK, who in 1970 co-authored a out of the black-hole information para- seminal paper with Hawking on black holes. became one of the most recognized names in dox. The three of them, along with Strominger’s Another former student, theoretical contemporary science. His books, particularly student Sasha Haco, had been working on a physicist Raphael Bousso at the University of A Brief History of Time (1988), became block- follow-up paper, which Perry says is in its final California, Berkeley, told Nature that his teacher buster successes. He relished making cameo stages and will have Hawking’s name on it. was a brilliant physicist who also excelled at appearances on television shows such as Star Perhaps because most of his work was of a communicating science to the public. “Stephen Trek: The Next Generation and The Simpsons. speculative nature and difficult to test, Hawk- was a joyful and light-hearted person, not to be Scientifically, his name is most closely associ- ing never won a Nobel prize. In 2016, some burdened by excessively respectful and convo- ated with the physics of black holes, which he wondered whether he might finally win one, luted interactions,” he says. began to study when they were considered mere when Jeff Steinhauer, a physicist at the Tech- The British physicist was born in Oxford in mathematical curiosities in Albert Einstein’s nion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, 1942. He was diagnosed with ALS when he was general theory of relativity. In the early 1970s, announced that he had found convincing evi- 21, while a doctoral student in cosmology at the he began to investigate what quantum physics dence of Hawking radiation — not in an actual University of Cambridge. Physicians gave him could reveal about the event horizon, a black black hole, but in a laboratory analogue made just a few years to live, but his disease advanced hole’s surface of no return. Hawking shocked of ultra-cold atoms. However, some experts more slowly than expected. He had an active the physics world when he calculated that this still consider those results inconclusive. career for decades, both as a theoretical physi- surface should slowly emit radiation (soon to A more direct test of some of Hawking’s cist and as a popularizer of science. Hawking become known as Hawking radiation). Black findings might yet come from the study of ©2018 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri ghts reserved. ©2018 Mac millan Publishers Li mited, part of Spri nger Nature. All ri gh22ts r eMARCHserved. 2018 | VOL 555 | NATURE | 423 NEWS IN FOCUS astrophysical black holes through gravita- from merging black holes, Hawking said that also explored cosmic inflation — a brief period tional waves, initiated by the US-based Laser he hoped future detections would be sensitive of rapid expansion in the first moments of the Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observa- enough to confirm a prediction he had made in Big Bang — and how it could spawn several tory (LIGO). Hawking and others have linked the 1970s: that the surface area of a post-merger universes, a ‘multiverse’. The pair set out to the surface area of a black hole’s event horizon to black hole should exceed the combined surface transform the idea of a multiverse into a test- its entropy, a measure of disorder. When inter- areas of the original objects that formed it. able scientific framework, says Hertog. “This viewed by Nature’s news team in 2016 about Together with cosmologist Thomas Hertog, was Hawking: to boldly go where Star Trek LIGO’s first detection of gravitational waves another of his former students, Hawking had fears to tread.” ■ SEE OBITUARY P.444 PALAEOANTHROPOLOGY creatures. “It’s a one-two punch combining tectonic shifts and climate shifts,” says Rick Potts, who led the work as director of the human origins programme at the Smithsonian Surprise roots for Institution in Washington DC. “That’s the kind of stuff out of which evolution arises.” The studies push back the timeline for such behaviour by around 100,000 years, adding to human culture a growing body of evidence suggesting that the roots of human culture are deeper and more extensive than once thought. Technology developments linked to climate turbulence. The latest evidence is “probably not enough to put the question to rest as to what effect the BY JEFF TOLLEFSON simple hand axes in favour of smaller and more climate variability had on human behaviour”, advanced blades made from obsidian and other says Nick Blegen, an anthropologist at the arly humans in eastern Africa crafted materials obtained from distant sources. That Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human advanced tools and displayed other shift suggests the early people living there had History in Jena, Germany. But he says that the complex behaviours tens of thousands developed a trade network — evidence of grow- findings from Olorgesailie provide solid evi- Eof years earlier than previously thought, ing sophistication in behaviour. The research- dence for a shift towards sophisticated behav- according to a trio of papers published on ers also found gouges on black and red rocks iour that predates the earliest evidence for Homo 15 March in Science1–3. Those advances coin- and minerals, which indicate that early Olorge- sapiens. Researchers have traditionally thought cided with — and may have been driven by — sailie residents used those materials to create that H. sapiens emerged around 200,000 years major climate and landscape changes. pigments and possibly communicate ideas. ago, but fossils discovered in Morocco could The latest evidence comes from the push that date to more than 300,000 years ago4. Olorgesailie Basin in southern Kenya, where A TIME OF CHANGE Blagen has documented the transport of researchers have previously found traces of All of these changes in human behaviour obsidian in central Kenya roughly 200,000 years ancient relatives of modern human as far back occurred during an extended period of envi- ago5, and he is preparing another study that as 1.2 million years ago (see ‘Complex lives’). ronmental upheaval, punctuated by strong would push that record back to 396,000 years Evidence collected at sites in the basin sug- earthquakes and a shift towards a more vari- ago at the same site. The record for such com- gests that early humans underwent a series able and arid climate. These changes occurred plex behaviour is likely to extend back even of profound changes at some point before at the same time as larger animals disappeared further, he says, but it is not clear whether the roughly 320,000 years ago.