Explain Like I'm Five is the best forum and archive on the internet for layperson-friendly explanations. Don't Panic!
Archived post. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast.
Sort by:
Best
Open comment sort options
Best
Top
New
Controversial
Old
Q&A
Intelligence in general is a very complicated field. While he is extremely intelligent, I'd be hesitant to claim he's one of the smartest people in the world. There are high-IQ societies like Mensa and others that are open to only people with IQs in the top 1% or top .01% of the population, I'm sure there's plenty of members in these groups with IQs higher than Hawking's. Plus there's probably plenty of extremely intelligent people who live in rural areas or grew up poor without access to education and never got to go to university and become well-known for their intelligence. The noted biologist Stephen Gould once said: "I'm somehow less concerned with the exact dimensions and particularities of Einstein's brain [which was dissected after his death] than I am with the certainty that men and women of equal or greater intelligence spent their whole lives slaving away on paddies and plantations."
All of that being said, Hawking is an extremely ACCOMPLISHED person. He practically revolutionized astrophysics, being the first to discover the implications of the cosmic background radiation, as well as hypothesizing the existence of black holes. His work has been tremendously important, and he even wrote a popular book on the subject that's accessible to laymen called "A Brief History of Time." All of this is made slightly more impressive by the fact that not only is he almost totally paralyzed from head to toe by his condition, but also because he's survived with it for decades when he was initially told by doctors it would kill him within 5 years. ALS is incurable and usually kills people within a couple years. He was diagnosed in his twenties and here he is today, still alive and working at the age of 72.
Schwarzschild predicted the existence of black holes (although he didn't know he was doing that), Hawking's main contribution was that black holes emit radiation and lose mass by doing so.
I'm not the science guy, I'm the big picture guy :)
You're now RES-Tagged as "Big Picture Guy".
Don't fuck this up.
tagged him too. i'll let you know if he starts trying to act like Bill Nye.
RemindMe! 100 days check to see if u/poopinbutt2014 is acting Unidan-y
Comment deleted by user
It's too late for him to back out, bro. His mouth wrote a cheque that his ass will now have to cash!
Contract has been notarized by G.E Schtuff & Buttes
"G.E Schtuff & Buttes: We Don't Fuck Around"
Pretty sure you're this year's Poopin' Butt.
Serious? Black holes lose mass? Wow, that changes so much of what I thought I understood. I'm off to embrace my ignorance with renewed tears.
Hawking radiation is pretty awesome, I don't quite understand it myself but the way I understand it is something like this, and forgive me if you already know a decent amount of this but I'm gonna explain all the basic concepts.
Firstly, event horizons. I assume you probably know what they are, I think most people have a rough understanding, but basically, it's the mathematically barrier where, inside the event horizon, nothing can escape because the escape velocity is higher than the speed of light.
Secondly, quantum vacuum fluctuations. I love these, because they're such a strange thing that seem like it makes absolutely no sense but it does, but effectively, due to the uncertainty principle, you can violate energy conservation as long as you give it back in a short enough time frame. This happens literally all the time all around us, quantum pairs of particles and anti-particles popping in and popping out of existence for a fraction of a second.
What Hawking predicted was that if these particles pop in and out of existence on the edge of the event horizon, one particle will sink into the black hole and the other will fly out. Due to energy conservation, the energy for the particle that escapes has to come from the black hole, and the black hole loses a tiny bit of mass.
That's pretty much it. These particles that pop in and out of existence usually just quickly recombine to completely destroy each other. If they pop up just so, one will go into the black hole and combine with a particle inside the black hole, destroying it completely, while the other one escapes. The black hole isn't emitting anything bit doing exactly what it's great at doing: sucking more stuff in. It just happens that there are other effects of that sucking that we can "see."
What's really cool about the theory, is that stellar mass black holes lose mass so slowly, that they actually gain more mass from background radiation than they lose.
He did that, plus a lot more. Without going into detail that I don't really understand anyway, he greatly expanded our understanding of the origins of the universe. He co-wrote a paper that offers proof that, if the universe adheres to general relativity and physical cosmology, it must have started as a singularity. There have been other physicists that have made comparable contributions to science without being disabled, and they were pretty famous, too, so I'd say his disability had nothing to do with his success. As far as intelligence goes, though, intelligence only matters up to a point. After around 125 or 130, increased IQ has little to no impact on success.
And then what factors become most impacting? I'd guess environment/opportunity and actions/motivation. Can you link to related info, please?
I'd say accelerated education is a big factor, while you're still young. If a child shows massive potential, don't put it to waste. Otherwise they'll grow bored and complacent with the fact they can half-ass everything and still get high grades until it catches up with them.
I'd say this is kind of what happened to me. I didn't get enough of an accelerated education, got bored and complacent with school, high school, early dollege, so I didn't put in the effort to 'stay ahead.' Come late into college, I was super burned out on education by that point that it kind of came crashing down on me.
There are other articles that touch on various aspects of this that I found with a quick Google search, but I don't remember what book I read about that in. Here's a link to a graph that shows average IQ by profession though, and you can see that doctors and scientists do have a higher average iq than janitors, but their average IQs are in the <125 range. http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx
Most of the people that I have heard from that claim membership in Mensa don't seem all that sharp to me. If scoring high on a test created by others who decided that scoring high on this test like they did would mean you are super intelligent, I question both the testers and testes.
Its just a bunch of people jerking each other off talking about how smart and special they are.
Take a look at how many Nobel prize recipients are Mensa members. (Hint: its 0).
That's not a hint, you told me the whole answer!
He must be a Mensa member
Am I being tested right now?
Yeah, that's probably because Mensa members aren't a random sample of high-intelligence people; they're disproportionately high-intelligence people who have nothing more to show for their intelligence than a test score. When you learn about regression to the mean, you start to wonder if maybe they're largely dumb people who got lucky on one test.
Never question the testes. Obey the testes.
Also the people taking the test.
Mensa is a joke by the way, they throw the membership at you just to collect money. I quit after a year.
Mensa has always been kind of a joke, there are other so-called "high IQ" societies with much higher thresholds and are more than just a circlejerk.
like harvard
I question your testes!
My testes will be made available for comment at 2:30 PM CST. Please limit questions to one followup.
questioning testes is not the same as questioning test-ees - JUST SAYING
I mean, scoring high on an IQ test isn't exactly the same as scoring high on tests at school. You don't just memorize shit and regurgitate it. It involves mental skills that are just generally sharper in some people than others. It's certainly not perfect, but I think it's good enough for these purposes. Nearly all 150s would be described (even by laymen) as smarter than most 100s.
Accessible to laymen? I struggled like hell reading that book..
Okay it's MORE accessible to laymen than like real physics papers. That stuff is unreadable if you haven't studied the subject for years.
Got a source for that? If you mean implications in relation to the big bang, this was suggested long before Hawking.
He's done a lot of work with black holes (which were hypothesised before Hawking started working on them), but I wouldn't go so far as to say he's revolutionised astrophysics. There have been a lot of other more far-reaching discoveries made in astrophysics in the last 50 years.
Wow. He's worked WITH black holes? How the hell did he manage that??
am wicked smaht lyk albit einstein
how do i aply 2 dis menssa¿
Soon as I read that I immediately thought of Srinivasa Ramanujan: http://youtu.be/QLL3v6Godjw?t=02s
Ive heard it suggested he doesn;t actually have ALS but an extremely rare condition that at the moment is unique to him. Ive never heard of ALS stopping so it made sense to me.
It's possible. Nevertheless, whatever his diagnosis is, he has an all-encompassing disability, and working around that for nearly his whole adult life is impressive.
I love learning stuff from people with usernames that you wouldn't think were going to say anything interesting, thanks u/poopinbutt2014 for proving me wrong.
"I'd be hesitant to claim he's one of the smartest people in the world."
do you know what this means?
Yes...?
edit: friend doesn't understand what he is saying
You're a fucking pedantic moron who doesn't understand language. Go think about what you've done.
lol
what you say is the opposite of true must i be a prick like the types of you and write condescending?
enjoy your 5 minutes of fame
"he is extremely intelligent, he is not one of the smartest people" ..
dont pose to be truthful if you cannot be man enough to admit your mistakes
This? I'm Not a Smart Man: http://youtu.be/trbBvBx4Ptg
Mensa is for retards.
edit: The real answer is the a) idea of a "general" intelligence is subjective.
b) Hawking is very smart but he has become more well known because of his condition relative to other people of similar intelligence and accomplishments, for example his collaborator Roger Penrose.
You sound like an extremely unpleasant person. Also I don't see how Mensa could be for "retards" when you must have an IQ in top percentile to get in.
Mensa is retarded because only an imbecile would put any value in a test that equates intelligence to a number.
People who boast about their IQ are losers - Hawking
You don't have to boast about your IQ to join Mensa and find it to be stimulating or entertaining to hang out with other high-IQ individuals.
Whatever poop butt. The only people who try to look smart are the those of mediocre intelligence.
What? You are an idiot.
I wrote "Mena's for retards", which means in my opinion Mensa the organisation has a membership of (and attracts) slow witted people.
Perhaps the question be better stated as "is Prof Hawking one of best living theoretical physicists?" And the answer is a definite "maybe." He is certainly one of the most well-known physicists. His current lack of a Nobel prize is a bit telling on the other hand. Is he perhaps "overrated" because of the adversity he's faced with his health condition? Or is he perhaps "overrated" because he wrote a famous book and television series that sought to explain complex science for a popular audience? Again the answer is "maybe.". Regardless, his ability to continue working over the past forty plus years at a very high level is so incredibly remarkable.
The one thing I love about the science prizes is that they wait at least a decade to ensure the work has a lasting impact on the field.
As much as I admire malala yousafzai, there is no way of knowing if her actions will have a lasting impact, it's simply too soon to tell. By awarding them right away (coughobamacough) they turn it into a political statement that takes away from all those that deserve to win.
After Obama got the nobel peace price for pretty much "Being Black and not Bush" it lost all value.
I'm of the opinion that making scientific discovery accessible and interesting to the public is almost as important (if not as important) as the research itself. Inspiring young minds and sharing knowledge with the young and old alike can do great things for the world.
The Nobel prize is more for experimentalists than theoreticians.
He was already recognised as gifted at university before his motor neuron disease diagnosis, and he won many awards before he became a popular celebrity on release of his 1988 book "A Brief History of Time".
The awards are: Adams Prize (1966), FRS (1974), Eddington Medal (1975), Heineman Prize (1976), Hughes Medal (1976), Albert Einstein Award (1978), CBE (1982), RAS Gold Medal (1985), Dirac Medal (1987)
Stephen Hawking will be remembered in history for his contributions to modern physics his ALS will be nothing more than trivia like how Einstein worked in a patient office
I didn't know Einstein's office was like that. I had always heard there was a lot of rushing around and tons of knee jerk reactions there.
god i hate language.
I like Hawking but in my opinion, he is not one of the smartest in the world. Michio Kaku, Brian Greene (although I like him) and Degrasse (or however you spell it) are all quite overrated. They communicate rather well so it adds to popularity. Shing tung yao, Edward Witten, Higgs, and Weinberg are all massively underrated.
Einstein was brilliant but they register his IQ at 160... plenty of people register higher but cant put the pieces together like Einstein. Currie family were all geniuses and don't really get a lot of mainstream attention. Intelligence, intellectualism, creativity, etc. all come into play.
Just like in high school... someone in the group gets the credit without the work.
DISCLAIMER: Everyone mentioned is extremely "Intelligent". All opinion based.
IQ is not a measurement of intelligence. Its a measurement of how well one can find stupid patterns in silly graphical tests.
spotted the <140.
126
lol dumbass
Thats how long my dick is in inches.
So yeah.
There's quite a high correlation between academic performance and finding stupid patterns in silly graphical tests.
There is also a high correlation between academic performance and no social skills.
Einstein's IQ was never measured, as far as I'm aware.
Projected at being around... according to Stanford-Bennett. My point is IQ is a score not a physical trait. i'm sure Kim Peek would score top 1% but had no contribution to science. How would you rank philosophers like Camus, Hume or Sartre? Abstract genius plays into it as well.. you cant say they aren't highly intelligent. When it comes to raw science, I thank Hawkings for the mainstream attention like we did Carl Sagen before him.
No Nobel prizes doesn't discount him from hall of fame, just like Allen Iverson not winning a championship. Until he impacts physics to the Dirac, Feynman, Maxwell or newton caliber... I cant put him up there.
When 'A Brief History of Time' was published, I had already read much of its content by other writer/physicist/cosmologists. He's a popular science pundit and expert. Yes he's a clever guy, but I don't think he's an especially unique thinker within his field.
part of his mystique is that many other theoretical physicists have to write out super-complex mathematics, Hawking - because he can't write -has to do them largely in his own head. Its not so much that his ideas are unique, its that he hasn't been held back by medical limitations and is still contributing to the larger scientific community.
i think you're confusing popular books and scientific research. when scientists write books for the public they tend to focus on already known science (new stuff is often complex, poorly understood and difficult to explain without deep technical knowledge).
so yes, i am sure brief history of time was not particularly original. but he's not considered an important scientist for that. his important work, as far as i know, is on black holes and quantum mechanics (in particular black hole thermodynamics - work done in the 70s, before the book, which was published in 88).
Yes, of course you're right; I must admit I was a bit sniffy about BHoT at the time, but I wouldn't begrudge him his undoubted importance simply because he published some populist stuff to make a buck...
You underestimate the importance of communicating Science, without a brief history of time, we may have less physicists.
He is an accomplished scientist, but there are probably dozens in the world just like him.
His condition captured the public's attention, and made him a celebrity. He is pretty similar to Einstein in this regard.
I know you meant well but when I read what you wrote, it sounded like you're downplaying his intelligence and accomplishments a bit. To be one of only a dozen to do what he has done in a population of 7 billion and to do it with a crippling disease like ALS isn't at all easy.
I'm downplaying the public perception of his accomplishments.
He is an amazing person and scientist, and his story is an inspiration.
But the science illiterate public has put him on this smartest guy in the world pedestal, because most of them couldn't name a second scientist if they tried. Einstein was made into this legend, largely at the expense of his equally accomplished peers, and it is a shame the public is using Hawking to do the same to his peers.
If that's what you meant, then I have absolutely no problem with what you said.
See, it would be more informative if every time posts like this comes up, examples could be given of other accomplished scientists that Hawking and Einstein is overshadowing. For an average person, my next convo on the topic would like be:
"um, yea so Hawking is that special because there are many others like him, or even better..." " oh really!? wow, like who?" " Um..like..um...well I read this on Reddit........." " oh..."
It's hard to even research these stuff because we won't even know where to start. Typing in "super smart scientists" on google might not be the most effective.......
Like Einstein in they he made significant contributions to physics in their lifetimes?
Like Einstein in the sense both of their celebrity elevated them above peers that had made similar contributions, and the public misunderstands that celebrity as superiority.
That is very silly. Einstein was a superior physicist.
As were about a half dozen other fathers of the new physics that most people have never heard of.
This is a good place to start:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W9lCnDhrZ-w/TgtxvGWcbEI/AAAAAAAADFc/oB8xFRciIp0/s1600/slovay.jpg
If you've done high school physics and chemistry, you should be able to recognize at least 5 names which had their work named after them.
I think his level of celebrity has more to do with the magnitude of the work he produced in such a short period of time, tho...
what condition made einstein a celebrity?
No specific condition, just his quirky likeability.
Crazy hair-itis.
He made it to Oxford, and was pioneering discoveries before is disease took effect. Watch the documentary on him.
Both.
If Stephen Hawking with his condition was living in an era where everybody needed to work 7 days a week to survive, he would have been a goner.
If Stephen Hawking was living in an era where the richer people employed scienceologists (yes I made up that word) to do research for them and he wouldn't have been in this condition, he would have done great (most likely).
However, with todays technology we have the ability to keep his intellect available for us by helping him survive. Do we do this for everybody? Sorry, nope. Could we do this for everybody? If we were willing to pay the costs for it, sure. Is he a lucky guy considering his condition? Absolutely.
It's worth remembering that much of Hawking's treatment has come from the NHS, which is a public health system. He probably would be worse off if he wasn't a leading scientist (like he was before he started getting really bad, physically), but I don't think it would be unimaginably bad.
You know we have a word... we are called "scientists"
Also, it isn't that we can't do this for everyone. Usually when people have conditions such as his, no matter what we do we can't keep them alive in a functioning state. He was lucky that his body has lasted this long.
You are surely not with me on which era I meant. The people who called themselves alchemists, astrologists etc. Pseudo-science-tists. Science-o-logists.