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Professor Hawking travels all over the world to lecture. As soon as lecture dates are
finalized they will be posted on this page
Latest
Professor Hawking's latest book, 'A Briefer History of Time' released.
From the book's blurb:
"Stephen Hawking's worldwide bestseller, A Brief History of Time, has been a landmark volume in scientific writing. Its author's engaging voice is one reason, and the compelling subjects he addresses is another: the nature of space and time, the role of God in creation, the history and future of the Universe. but it is also true that in the years since its publication, readers have repeatedly told Professor Hawking of their great difficulty in understanding some of the book's most important concepts.
"This is the origin of and the reason for A Briefer History of Time: its author's wish to make its content accessible to readers - as well as to bring it up to date with the latest scientific observations and findings."
The book has been reviewed by The Guardian and they published an interview with Stephen, link to article.
November 2005
Professor Hawking visited the USA for 2 weeks, he gave public lectures in San Jose and Oakland. A third lecture in Seattle had to be done by webcast after we were unable to make the trip to Seattle in time. Professor Hawking also spoke to Intel employees as thanks for their hard work on designing his custom computer. We also took part in the Cambridge in American Cambridge 800 Campaign.
October 2005
Professor Hawking is travelling to Germany to speak to Freie Universität Berlin before travelling on to Frankfurt for the Book Fair.
March 2005
Professor Hawking travelled to Spain as the guest of the Prince of Asturias to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Prince of Asturias awards.
Jan 2005
Professor Hawking spent a
month in California, visiting Caltech and UCSB. While in Santa Barbara
he introduced his friend, and recent Nobel prize winner, Professor David Gross
for his talk at the Lobero Theater.
Professor Hawking was also invited to Washington by the Smithsoian Institution, where
they awarded him the Smithson Bicentennial Medal. See Professor Jim Hartle's
preceding talk here.
Dec 2004
Professor Hawking attended
the 2004 British Comedy
Awards, and persented an award to Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons.
July 2004
At the GR17 conference in Dublin, Professor Hawking gave a controversial lecture on his new calculations regarding Black Hole Information Loss.
Press Release:
One of the most intriguing problems in theoretical physics has been solved by Professor Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge. He presented his findings at GR17, an International Conference in Dublin, on Wednesday 21 July.
Black holes are often thought of as being regions of space into which matter and energy can fall, and disappear forever. In 1974, Stephen Hawking discovered that when one fused the ideas of quantum mechanics with those of general relativity, it was no longer true that black holes were completely black. They emitted radiation, now known as Hawking radiation. This radiation carried energy away from the black hole which meant that the black hole would gradually shrink and then disappear in a final explosive outburst.
These ideas led to a fundamental difficulty, the information paradox, the resolution of which is to be revealed in Dublin. The basic problem is that black holes, as well as eating matter, also appear to eat quantum mechanical information. Yet the most fundamental laws of physics demand that this information be preserved as the universe evolves. The information paradox was explored and formalised by Hawking in 1975. Since then, many have tried to find a solution.
Whilst most physicists think that there must be a resolution of the paradox, nobody has really produced a believable explanation. In fact, seven years ago the issue prompted Hawking, together with Kip Thorne of Caltech, to make a wager against John Preskill also of Caltech, that the information swallowed by black holes could never be recovered.
On Wednesday, Hawking conceded that he has lost the bet.
The way his new calculations work is to show that the event horizon, which is the surface of the black hole, has quantum fluctuations in it. These are the same uncertainties in position that were made famous by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and are central to quantum mechanics. The fluctuations gradually allow all the information inside the black hole to leak out, thus allowing us to form a consistent picture. The information paradox is now unravelled.
A complete description of this work will be published in professional journals and on the web in due course.
November 2003
Intel donated a new computer to Professor Hawking, custom designed for his wheelchair. The computer is a modified laptop running on a 1.5 GHz Pentium M chip, with Centrino technology.
September 2003
Professor Hawking spent 7 weeks in the USA, visiting Caltech in LA, and attending the KITP conference at UCSB in Santa Barbara. He also spent a few days in Cleveland to take part in the CERCA conference at CWRU, and gave a public lecture in Severance Hall.
August 2003
Professor Hawking attended the Nobel Symposium on String Theory and Cosmology, in Sigtuna, Sweden.
June 2003
Professor Hawking made a surprise appearance on the 'Conan O'Brian Show' in America, along side Jim Carrey. A week later Jim dropped in to Cambridge to join him for dinner. It was a great evening, and we hope Jim's foot has recovered!
March 2003
In late March Professor Hawking spent a week at the Cosmic Inflation conference at UC Davis in California. Details can be found here.
February 2003
Professor Hawking spent a month attending the holography conference at Texas A&M University. During that time he lectured in College Station, Galveston and the Woodlands.
January 2003
This month Professor Hawking gave a lecture discussing the future of physics, for the Cambridge-MIT Institute. The lecture was transmitted live to MIT in America via the web. Read more about it here.
October 2002
Professor Hawking travelled to Paris to give a lecture on Brane theory at the Evergreen Partners Annual Meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel.
September 2002
Professor Hawking received a new computer system from Intel this month. This new converted laptop runs at over 1 GHz and has a greatly different appearence to his last system.
This was also the last month for Neel Shearer as Professor Hawking's Graduate Assistant. He hands over the role to Tom Pelly. Bye Neel!
August 2002
In order to take part in
some of the satellite conferences of the International Congress of Mathematicians,
Professor Hawking travelled to China. He attended String
Theory sessions at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou and at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He
presented public
lectures in Hangzhou on the 15th, and in Beijing on the
18th. We also managed to fit some sightseeing, before returning
to the UK!
July 2002
Professor Hawking
gave a public lecture in Cambridge on the 20th of
July at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences. It was
part of the centennial celebration of the birth of Paul
Dirac, a holder of the Lucasian Chair and a Nobel Prize
winner. The lectures
also marked the end of the Strings 2002 conference, which this year,
was hosted by DAMTP.
In recognition of the
Astronomer Royal's 60th Birthday, a conference was held in
Cambridge in his honour. Stephen gave a public
lecture as part of the celebrations for Sir Martin Rees on
Friday 12th July.
June 2002
On the 25th of June,
Professor Hawking was invited to the Science Museum in London
to be presented with the Aventis Book Prize, one of the UK's most
prestigious non-fiction book prizes. It celebrates the very best
in popular science writing, and Professor Hawking won for his
new book, 'The
Universe in a Nutshell'. Professor Hawking said "I didn't expect to
win this prize, after all, my previous book didn't win any
prizes, despite selling millions. But I am very pleased to
have had better luck this time. Science writing really can
have an impact on how we live. Wherever I go all around the
world, people want to know more. This has helped raise the
profile of science." The BBC were there to report the event.
April 2002
One of the last
things we did in the US, was to give a lecture at the Keller
Auditorium in Portalnd, Oregon on Friday 26th April. It was
organized by The Institute for Science Engineering and Public
Policy, and I have to say, it was a great success, with a
complete sell out, which in the Keller is over 2800 people!
You can have a look at the
poster.
March 2002
While in Santa Barbara, at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Professor Hawking gave a
technical lecture, called 'Why does Inflation Start at the top of Hill?'. The ITP put the slides and audio
online.
Professor Hawking
gave a lecture at Caltech University in Pasadena, California
on the evening of the 15th March. You can find out more on the
Caltech website.
January 2002
The new edition of
the award winning web magazine, +Plus is
out. It is a special edtition to celebrate
Stephens 60th Birthday and the conference that accompanied
it. Click the link above to see some photos and the lectures
of the Friday lecture series.
A conference to
celebrate Professor Hawking's 60th Birthday and the advances
of the field in the last 40 years was attended by over 200
Physicists. On Friday 11th January there was a day of public lectures.
Professor Hawking's
talk was webcast by the BBC
November 2001
A recent talk at the
Cambridge Union Society was very well received. The talk took
place on the 27th November.
Professor Hawking travelled to
Japan to attend the RESCEU conference. While there he also
gave a public lecture at the University of Tokyo. You can see the
poster
here.
On
8th November Professor Hawking officially launched 'The Universe in a Nutshell in the UK. Stephen
posed for photographers, and then, on an evening supported by
Waterstones and the Daily Telegraph, he gave a 50 minute
lecture to a packed theatre. He finished by responding to
questions, read by the Daily Telegraphs Science Editor, Roger
Highfield.
Professor Hawking gave an interview with
the BBC Radio 4 'Today' programme on Saturday 3rd
November. You can listen to the interview on the 'Today' website
October
2001
The new book was released! Professor Hawking's
new book 'The Universe in a Nutshell' was released,
initially
in Germany to much excitement, but then in November in the UK
and other countries. You can find an image of the cover of the
UK edition here. Flick
through some of the pages of the book (hold down
left mouse button over page and drag to turn the pages! -
thanks to bol.de for this)
Professor Hawking
travelled to mainland Europe. He gave a lecture in Munich to
officially launch 'Universe in a Nutshell'. See
him on stage! (Thanks to Dr G Henrich for this)
Professor Hawking then went on to Brussels to take part in a conference organised by Marc Henneaux, winner of the prestigious Francqui
Prize for 2000.
September
2001
Professor Hawking has a new wheelchair!
Provided by Pride Mobility, the new chair is a Quantum Jazzy 1400. Professor Hawking
described it as the wheelchair equivalent of a ferrari - which
is almost true as the seat is the same as that used in many
sportscars! You can find three articles written by Terri
Rozaieski, who came to the UK with her husband, Mike, to
deliver and fine tune the chair for Professor Hawking's needs
below:
one two three
April 2001
Professor Hawking spent a week in Granada as a guest of the IAA. While there he gave a
public lecture which was very well attended, and which was also projected
on to screens in the nearby Science Park!
February/March 2001
Professor Hawking was in the USA for six weeks. He gave a public lecture at the ITP in Santa
Barbara for Davidfest. He gave two public lectures. One at USC, and the other at the Seattle Opera House
February 2001
Professor Hawking gave a public lecture on the 9th of February in Lady Mitchell Hall,
Cambridge. He was helping to raise money for a local primary school. Click here to see the poster!
January 2001
Professor Hawking recently attended the Strings 2001 conference in Mumbai, India, as a Sarojini Damodaran
International Fellow. Click the link to find out more about the conference. After the
conference in Mumbai Professor Hawking went on to Delhi to present the Albert Einstein lecture
on the 17th January at the Siri Fort Auditorium.
October 2000
On Friday 20th October Professor Hawking gave the 1999 Naylor Prize Lecture on behalf of the
London Mathematical Society.
September 2000
Professor Hawking gave a public lecture on behalf of the University of Edinburgh and the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. It was on Friday 29th September and was open to all. Check out the website to find out more about the event.
September 2000
Professor Hawking has just returned from a trip to South Korea. He met with the President, and
gave several lectures, from a public lecture for 4000 people at the Seoul National University,
to a highly technical colloquium at KIAS.
Following this, he travelled to the island of Cheju to attend the COSMO 2000 conference
June 2000
Professor Hawking was in the USA at the end of May. He was at Caltech in Pasadena, CA as well
as other places along the West Coast of the USA. Whilst in Caltech, he gave a lecture for the
KipFest
Saturday Science Talks in honor of Kip Thorne's 60th birthday. Click the link to find more
about the day!
January 2000
Early this year, Professor Hawking was visiting Caltech [www.caltech.edu],
in Pasadena, CA. He was there to attend the Strings
Theory at the Millennium conference.
He gave a lecture to the general public, on the 21st January, in Cupertino,
CA. For information on this lecture check the ISEPP [www.isepp.org]
site.
December 1999
Larry King interviewed Professor Hawking, for the CNN [www.cnn.com]
show Larry
King Live. The show first aired on Christmas Day 1999.
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