Coordinates	16°48′″N96°09′″N
name	Slashdot
screenshot
url	slashdot.org
language	English and Japanese
type	News
registration	Optional
owner	Geeknet, Inc.
author	Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda
alexa	1,384 ()
launch date	September 1997
current status	Active
revenue	Advertisement, optional subscription
slogan	News for nerds. Stuff that matters. }}

''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section attached to it. ''Slashdot'' was founded in 1997 as a blog, ''Chips & Dips'', by Hope College computer science student Rob Malda, also known as "Commander Taco" and fellow classmate Jeff Bates, also known as "Hemos". The name "Slashdot" is described by Malda as "a sort of obnoxious parody of a URL", chosen to confuse those who tried to pronounce the URL of the site ("h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org").

Summaries of stories and links to news articles are submitted by ''Slashdot's'' own readers, and each story becomes the topic of a threaded discussion among users. Discussion is moderated by a user-based moderation system. Randomly selected moderators assign points of either ''−1'' or ''+1'' to each comment, based on whether the comment is perceived as either ''normal'', ''offtopic'', ''insightful'', ''redundant'', ''interesting'', or ''troll'' (among others). The site's comment and moderation system is administered by its own content management system, Slash, which is available under the GNU General Public License.

''Slashdot's'' traffic is estimated at approximately 5.5 million users per month, and the site has won more than 20 awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 for ''Best Community Site'' and ''Best News Site''. Occasionally, a story will link to a server causing a large surge of traffic, which can overwhelm some smaller or independent sites. This phenomenon is known as the "''Slashdot'' effect".

History

The origins of the site now known as ''Slashdot'' date back to July 1997, when Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda started a personal website called ''Chips & Dips'', which featured a single "rant" each day about something that interested him – typically something to do with Linux or open-source software. At the time, Malda was a student at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, majoring in computer science. The site became ''Slashdot'' in September 1997 under the moniker, "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters," and quickly became a hotspot on the Web for news and information of interest to computer geeks. The name "Slashdot" came from a somewhat "obnoxious parody of a URL" – when Malda registered the domain, he desired to make a name that was "silly and unpronounceable" – try pronouncing out, "h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slashdot-dot-org".

By June 1998, the site was seeing as many as 100,000 page views per day, and advertisers began to take notice. By December 1998, Slashdot had net revenues of $18,000, yet its Internet profile was higher, and revenues were expected to increase. On June 29, 1999, the site was sold to Linux megasite Andover.net for $1.5 million in cash and $7 million in Andover stock at the IPO price. Part of the deal was contingent upon the continued employment of Rob Malda and Jeff Bates and on "the achievement of certain milestones". With the acquisition of Slashdot, Andover.net could now advertise itself as "the leading Linux/Open Source destination on the Internet". Andover.net eventually merged with VA Linux on February 3, 2000, which changed its name to SourceForge, Inc. on May 24, 2007, and became Geeknet, Inc. on November 4, 2009.

Slashdot's 10,000th article was posted after two and a half years on February 24, 2000, and the 100,000th article was posted on December 11, 2009 after 12 years online. During the first 12 years, the most active story with the most responses posted was the post-2004 US Presidential Election article "Kerry Concedes Election To Bush" with 5,687 posts. This followed the creation of a new article section, ''politics.slashdot.org'', created at the start of the 2004 election on September 7, 2004. Many of the most popular stories are political, with "Strike on Iraq" (March 19, 2003) the second-most-active article and "Barack Obama Wins US Presidency" (November 5, 2008) the third-most-active. The rest of the 10 most active articles are an article announcing the 2005 London bombings, and several articles about Evolution vs. Intelligent Design, Saddam Hussein's capture, and ''Fahrenheit 9/11''. Articles about Microsoft and its Windows Operating System are popular—a thread posted in 2002 titled "What's Keeping You On Windows?" was the 10th-most-active story, and an article about Windows 2000/NT4 source-code leaks the most visited article with more than 680,000 hits.

Some controversy erupted on March 9, 2001 after an anonymous user posted the full text of Scientology's "Operating Thetan Level Three" (OT III) document in a comment attached to a Slashdot article. The Church of Scientology demanded that Slashdot remove the document under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A week later, in a long article, Slashdot editors explained their decision to remove the page while providing links and information on how to get the document from other sources.

Slashdot Japan was launched on May 28, 2001 (although the first article was published April 5, 2001) and is an official offshoot of the US-based Web site. The site is currently owned by OSDN-Japan, Inc., and carries some of the US-based Slashdot articles as well as localized stories. An external site, ''todhsalS'', has reported selected stories published on Slashdot Japan in English since March 1, 2009.

On Valentine's Day 2002, founder Rob Malda proposed to longtime girlfriend Kathleen Fent using the front page of Slashdot. They were married on December 8, 2002, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Slashdot implemented a subscription service on March 1, 2002. Slashdot's subscription model works by allowing users to pay a small fee to be able to view pages without banner ads, starting at a rate of $5 per 1,000 page views – non-subscribers may still view articles and respond to comments, with banner ads in place. On March 6, 2003, subscribers were given the ability to see articles 10 to 20 minutes before they are released to the public.

Slashdot altered its threaded discussion forum display software to explicitly show domains for links in articles, because "users made a sport out of tricking unsuspecting readers into visiting [Goatse.cx]."

In observance of April Fools' Day (April 1) in 2006, Slashdot temporarily changed its signature teal color theme to a warm palette of bubblegum pink and changed its masthead from the usual, "News for Nerds" motto to, "OMG!!! Ponies!!!" Editors joked that this was done to increase female readership. In another supposed April Fools' Day joke, User Achievement tags were introduced on April 1, 2009. This system allowed users to be tagged with various achievements, such as "The Tagger" for tagging a story or "Member of the {1,2,3,4,5} Digit UID Club" for having a Slashdot UID consisting of a certain number of digits. While it was posted on April Fools' Day to allow for certain joke achievements, the system is real.

Slashdot unveiled its newly redesigned site on June 4, 2006, following a CSS Redesign Competition. The winner of the competition was Alex Bendiken, who built on the initial CSS framework of the site. The new site looks similar to the old one but is more polished with more rounded curves, collapsible menus, and updated fonts. On November 9 that same year, Malda wrote that Slashdot attained 16,777,215 (or 2²⁴ − 1) comments, which broke the database for three hours until the administrators fixed the issue.

On January 25, 2011, Malda announced that the site launched its third major redesign in its 13.5-year history, which gutted the HTML and CSS, and updated the graphics.

On August 25, 2011, Malda announced that he was resigning as Editor-in-Chief of Slashdot, effective immediately. He did not mention any immediate plans for the future, other than spending more time with his family, catching up on some reading, and possibly writing a book.

Administration

The site is owned by Geeknet, Inc. and was run by its founder, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, from 1998 until 2011. He shared editorial responsibilities with several other editors including Timothy Lord, Patrick "Scuttlemonkey" McGarry, Jeff "Soulskill" Boehm, Rob "Samzenpus" Rozeboom, and Keith Dawson. The administration of the site uses the Slash source code and database, a content management system available under the GNU General Public License. Slashdot's editors are primarily responsible for selecting the primary stories daily; they provide a one-paragraph summary for each and a link to an external site where the story originated. Each story becomes the topic for a threaded discussion among the site's users. A user-based moderation system is employed to filter out abusive comments. Every comment is initially given a score of ''-1'' to ''+2'', with a default score of ''+1'' for registered users, ''0'' for anonymous users (Anonymous Coward), ''+2'' for users with high "karma", or ''−1'' for users with low "karma". As moderators read comments attached to articles, they click to moderate the comment, either up (''+1'') or down (''−1''). Moderators may choose to attach a particular descriptor to the comments as well, such as ''normal'', ''offtopic'', ''flamebait'', ''troll'', ''redundant'', ''insightful'', ''interesting'', ''informative'', ''funny'', ''overrated'', or ''underrated'', with each corresponding to a ''-1'' or ''+1'' rating. So a comment may be seen to have a rating of "+1 insightful" or "-1 troll".

Moderation points add to a user's karma, and users with high "karma" are eligible to become moderators themselves. The system does not promote regular users as "moderators" and instead assigns five moderation points at a time to users based on the number of comments they have entered in the system – once a user's moderation points are used up, they can no longer moderate articles (though they can be assigned more moderation points at a later date). Paid staff editors have an unlimited number of moderation points.

A given comment can have any integer score from ''-1'' to ''+5'', and registered users of Slashdot can set a personal threshold so that no comments with a lesser score are displayed. For instance, a user reading Slashdot at level ''+5'' will only see the highest rated stories, while a user reading at level ''-1'' will see a more "unfiltered, anarchic version".

A meta-moderation system was implemented on September 7, 1999, to moderate the moderators and help contain abuses in the moderation system. Meta-moderators are presented with a set of moderations that they may rate as either ''fair'' or ''unfair''. For each moderation, the meta-moderator sees the original comment and the reason assigned by the moderator (e.g. ''troll'', ''funny''), and the meta-moderator can click to see the context of comments surrounding the one that was moderated.

Features

Slashdot features discussion forums on a variety of technology- and science-related topics, or "News for Nerds", as its motto states. The site is well known for its bias towards the open source software movement. Articles are divided into the following sections:

''Apple'' – news related to products from Apple Inc., such as Mac OS X or iPod.

''Ask Slashdot'' – articles that seek advice from users about jobs, computer hardware, software glitches, philosophical problems, or more.

''Book Reviews'' – original book reviews on (not necessarily) tech books.

''BSD'' – news about the various modern versions of UNIX derived from the UCB distribution.

''Developers'' – news about software or programming.

''Features'' – original, feature-length articles.

''Games'' – gaming news.

''Geeks in Space'' – a web audio broadcast featuring several of the editors of Slashdot (outdated; no new episodes have been posted recently).

''Idle'' – miscellaneous and humorous articles, pictures, and videos.

''Interviews'' – interviews with various people related to science and technology.

''Information Technology'' (IT) – anything that people with "Information Technology" in their job description might be interested to know.

''Linux'' – news specific to the Linux operating system (any variant or distribution).

''Politics'' – news relevant to politics of the United States. It was created primarily to cover the 2004 United States Presidential Election, but now exists for occasional stories that are related to US Politics.

''Polls'' – a poll is usually run on the site in the right-hand margin, asking users their choice on a variety of topics. In the earlier years of the site, one of the options that could be selected was ''CowboyNeal'', the handle of Jonathan Pater, an administrator of the site. This became known as the ''CowboyNeal option''. During the summer of 2005, he stopped being in charge of the polls, and as a result the ''CowboyNeal option'' disappeared.

''Science'' – news on science-related topics (e.g. cool technology, space telescope observations, interesting medical research).

''Your Rights Online'' (YRO) – news on topics pertaining to internet privacy and digital rights.

Tags

Slashdot uses a system of "tags" where users can categorize a story to group them together and sorting them. Tags are written in all lowercase, with no spaces, and limited to 64 characters. For example, articles could be tagged as being about ''security'' or ''mozilla''. Some articles are tagged with longer tags, such as ''whatcouldpossiblygowrong'' (expressing the perception of catastrophic risk), ''suddenoutbreakofcommonsense'' (used when the community feels that the subject has finally figured out something obvious), ''correlationnotcausation'' (used when scientific articles lack direct evidence; see correlation does not imply causation), or ''getyourasstomars'' (commonly seen in articles about Mars or space exploration).

Culture

As an online community with primarily user-generated content, many in-jokes and internet memes have developed over the course of the site's history. A popular meme (based on an unscientific Slashdot user poll) is, "In Soviet Russia, ''noun'' ''verb'' you!" The phrase was actually originated by Ukrainian-born comedian Yakov Smirnoff as his famous Russian reversal – "In America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, The Party can always find you!" Other popular memes usually pertain to computing or technology, such as "Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these", "But does it run Linux?", or "Netcraft now confirms: BSD (or some other software package or item) is dying." Some users will also refer to seemingly innocent remarks by correcting them and adding "you insensitive clod!" to the statement – a reference to a February 14, 1986, ''Calvin & Hobbes'' cartoon or the 11th season The Simpsons episode, ''Last Tap Dance in Springfield'', wherein Frink exclaims to Homer, "I was merely trying to spare the girl's feelings, you insensitive clod!" Users will also typically refer to articles referring to data storage and data capacity by inquiring how much it is in units of Libraries of Congress.

Slashdotters often use the abbreviation TFA which stands for ''The fucking article'' or RTFA (''Read the fucking article''), which itself is derived from the abbreviation RTFM. Usage of this abbreviation often exposes comments from posters without reading the article linked to the main story.

Slashdotters typically like to mock United States Senator Ted Stevens' 2006 description of the Internet as a "series of tubes" or Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident from 2005. Microsoft founder Bill Gates is a popular target of jokes by Slashdotters, and all stories about Microsoft are identified with a graphic of Gates looking like a Borg from ''Star Trek: The Next Generation''. Many Slashdotters have long talked about the supposed release of ''Duke Nukem Forever'', which was promised in 1997 but was delayed indefinitely. References to the game are commonly brought up in other articles about software packages that are not yet in production even though the announced delivery date has long passed (see vaporware).

Having a low Slashdot user identifier (user ID) is highly valued since they are assigned sequentially; having one is a sign that someone has an older account and has contributed to the site longer. For Slashdot's 10-year anniversary in 2007, one of the items auctioned off in the charity auction for the Electronic Frontier Foundation was a 3-digit Slashdot user ID.

Traffic and publicity

As of 2006, Slashdot had approximately 5.5 million users per month. As of June 2011, the site's Alexa rank is 1,339, with the average user spending 3.4 minutes per day on the site and 45,393 sites linking in. The primary stories on the site consist of a short synopsis paragraph, a link to the original story, and a lengthy discussion section, all contributed by users. Discussion on stories can get up to 10,000 posts per day. Slashdot has been considered a pioneer in user-driven content, influencing other sites such as Google News and Wikipedia. Approximately 50% of Slashdot's traffic consists of people that simply check out the headlines and click through, while the other 50% participates in discussion boards and takes part in the community. Many users that see a link in a story on the site click on the link, leading to the site getting swamped by heavy traffic and the server collapsing. This is known as the "Slashdot effect", a term which was first coined on February 15, 1999 that refers to an article about a "new generation of niche Web portals driving unprecedented amounts of traffic to sites of interest". Today, most major websites can handle the surge of traffic, but the effect continues to occur on smaller or independent sites. These sites are then said to have been ''Slashdotted''.

Slashdot has received over twenty awards, including People's Voice Awards in 2000 in both of the categories for which it was nominated (''Best Community Site'' and ''Best News Site''). It was also voted as one of ''Newsweek''s favorite technology Web sites and rated in Yahoo's Top 100 Web sites as the "Best Geek Hangout" (2001). The main antagonists in the 2004 novel ''Century Rain'', by Alastair Reynolds – The Slashers – are named after Slashdot users. The site was mentioned briefly in the 2000 novel ''Cosmonaut Keep'', written by Ken MacLeod. Several celebrities have stated that they either checked the website regularly or participated in its discussion forums using an account. Some of these celebrities include: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, writer and actor Wil Wheaton, and id Software technical director John Carmack.

See also

Digg

Fark

Reddit

References

External links

Slashdot front page

Slashdot Japan front page

A Brief History of Slashdot:

* Part 1, Chips & Dips

* Part 2, Explosions

* Part 3, Going Corporate

* Part 4, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Category:Blogs Category:Community websites Category:Virtual communities Category:Internet properties established in 1997 Category:Computer webzines Category:Reputation management Category:Washtenaw County, Michigan Category:Internet services supporting OpenID Category:Geeknet Category:American websites

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Coordinates	16°48′″N96°09′″N
Name	Stephen Hawking
Birth name	Stephen William Hawking
Birth date	January 08, 1942
Birth place	Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Residence	United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Fields	Applied mathematicsTheoretical physicsCosmology
Workplaces	Cambridge UniversityCalifornia Institute of TechnologyPerimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Alma mater	Oxford UniversityCambridge University
Doctoral advisor	Dennis Sciama
Academic advisors	Robert Berman
Doctoral students	Bruce AllenRaphael BoussoFay DowkerMalcolm PerryBernard CarrGary GibbonsHarvey ReallDon PageTim PrestidgeRaymond LaflammeJulian Luttrell
Known for	Black holesTheoretical cosmologyQuantum gravityHawking radiation
Influences	Dikran TahtaAlbert Einstein
Awards
Spouse	Jane Hawking(m. 1965–1991, divorced)Elaine Mason(m. 1995–2006, divorced)
Signature	Hawkingsig.svg }}

Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for 30 years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009. He is now Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include the runaway best seller ''A Brief History of Time'', which stayed on the British ''Sunday Times'' best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Hawking's key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein–Hawking radiation).

Hawking has a motor neurone disease that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition that has progressed over the years and has left him almost completely paralysed.

Early life

Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 to Dr. Frank Hawking, a research biologist, and Isobel Hawking. He had two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward. Though Hawking's parents were living in North London, they moved to Oxford while his mother was pregnant with Stephen, desiring a safer location for the birth of their first child. (London was under attack at the time by the Luftwaffe.) According to Hawking, a German V-2 missile struck only a few streets away.

After Hawking was born, the family moved back to London, where his father headed the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research. In 1950, Hawking and his family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire, where he attended St Albans High School for Girls from 1950 to 1953. (At that time, boys could attend the Girls' school until the age of ten.) From the age of eleven, he attended St Albans School, where he was a good, but not exceptional, student. When asked later to name a teacher who had inspired him, Hawking named his mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta. He maintains his connection with the school, giving his name to one of the four houses and to an extracurricular science lecture series. He has visited it to deliver one of the lectures and has also granted a lengthy interview to pupils working on the school magazine, ''The Albanian''.

Hawking was always interested in science. Inspired by his mathematics teacher, he originally wanted to study the subject at university. However, Hawking's father wanted him to apply to University College, Oxford, where his father had attended. As University College did not have a mathematics fellow at that time, it would not accept applications from students who wished to read that discipline. Hawking therefore applied to read natural sciences, in which he gained a scholarship. Once at University College, Hawking specialised in physics. His interests during this time were in thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics. His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said in ''The New York Times Magazine'':

Hawking was passing, but his unimpressive study habits resulted in a final examination score on the borderline between first and second class honours, making an "oral examination" necessary. Berman said of the oral examination:

After receiving his B.A. degree at Oxford in 1962, he stayed to study astronomy. He decided to leave when he found that studying sunspots, which was all the observatory was equipped for, did not appeal to him and that he was more interested in theory than in observation. He left Oxford for Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he engaged in the study of theoretical astronomy and cosmology.

Career

Almost as soon as he arrived at Cambridge, he started developing symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, known colloquially in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease), a type of motor neurone disease which would cost him almost all neuromuscular control. During his first two years at Cambridge, he did not distinguish himself, but, after the disease had stabilised and with the help of his doctoral tutor, Dennis William Sciama, he returned to working on his PhD.

Hawking was elected as one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society in 1974, was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982, and became a Companion of Honour in 1989. Hawking is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists''.

In 1974, he accepted the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to work with his friend, Kip Thorne, who was a faculty member there. He continues to have ties with Caltech, spending a month each year there since 1992.

Hawking's achievements were made despite the increasing paralysis caused by the ALS. By 1974, he was unable to feed himself or get out of bed. His speech became slurred so that he could be understood only by people who knew him well. In 1985, he caught pneumonia and had to have a tracheotomy, which made him unable to speak at all. A Cambridge scientist built a device that enables Hawking to write onto a computer with small movements of his body, and then have a voice synthesiser speak what he has typed.

Research fields

Hawking's principal fields of research are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity.

In the late 1960s, he and his Cambridge friend and colleague, Roger Penrose, applied a new, complex mathematical model they had created from Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. This led, in 1970, to Hawking proving the first of many singularity theorems; such theorems provide a set of sufficient conditions for the existence of a gravitational singularity in space-time. This work showed that, far from being mathematical curiosities which appear only in special cases, singularities are a fairly generic feature of general relativity.

He supplied a mathematical proof, along with Brandon Carter, Werner Israel and D. Robinson, of John Wheeler's no-hair theorem – namely, that any black hole is fully described by the three properties of mass, angular momentum, and electric charge.

Hawking also suggested upon analysis of gamma ray emissions that after the Big Bang, primordial mini black holes were formed. With Bardeen and Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics. In 1974, he calculated that black holes should thermally create and emit subatomic particles, known today as Bekenstein-Hawking radiation, until they exhaust their energy and evaporate.

In collaboration with Jim Hartle, Hawking developed a model in which the universe had no boundary in space-time, replacing the initial singularity of the classical Big Bang models with a region akin to the North Pole: one cannot travel north of the North Pole, as there is no boundary. While originally the no-boundary proposal predicted a closed universe, discussions with Neil Turok led to the realisation that the no-boundary proposal is also consistent with a universe which is not closed.

Along with Thomas Hertog at CERN, in 2006 Hawking proposed a theory of "top-down cosmology," which says that the universe had no unique initial state, and therefore it is inappropriate for physicists to attempt to formulate a theory that predicts the universe's current configuration from one particular initial state. Top-down cosmology posits that in some sense, the present "selects" the past from a superposition of many possible histories. In doing so, the theory suggests a possible resolution of the fine-tuning question: It is inevitable that we find our universe's present physical constants, as the current universe "selects" only those past histories that led to the present conditions. In this way, top-down cosmology provides an anthropic explanation for why we find ourselves in a universe that allows matter and life, without invoking an ensemble of multiple universes.

Hawking's many other scientific investigations have included the study of quantum cosmology, cosmic inflation, helium production in anisotropic Big Bang universes, large N cosmology, the density matrix of the universe, topology and structure of the universe, baby universes, Yang-Mills instantons and the S matrix, anti de Sitter space, quantum entanglement and entropy, the nature of space and time, including the arrow of time, spacetime foam, string theory, supergravity, Euclidean quantum gravity, the gravitational Hamiltonian, Brans-Dicke and Hoyle-Narlikar theories of gravitation, gravitational radiation, and wormholes.

At a George Washington University lecture in honour of NASA's fiftieth anniversary, Hawking theorised on the existence of extraterrestrial life, believing that "primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare."

Losing an old bet

Hawking was in the news in July 2004 for presenting a new theory about black holes which goes against his own long-held belief about their behaviour, thus losing a bet he made with Kip Thorne and John Preskill of Caltech. Classically, it can be shown that information crossing the event horizon of a black hole is lost to our universe, and that thus all black holes are identical beyond their mass, electrical charge and angular velocity (the "no hair theorem"). The problem with this theorem is that it implies the black hole will emit the same radiation regardless of what goes into it, and as a consequence that if a pure quantum state is thrown into a black hole, an "ordinary" mixed state will be returned. This runs counter to the rules of quantum mechanics and is known as the black hole information paradox.

Human spaceflight

At the fiftieth anniversary of NASA in 2008, Hawking gave a keynote speech on the final frontier exhorting and inspiring the space technology community on why we (the human race) explore space.

At the celebration of his sixty-fifth birthday on 8 January 2007, Hawking announced his plan to take a zero-gravity flight in 2007 to prepare for a sub-orbital spaceflight in 2009 on Virgin Galactic's space service. Billionaire Richard Branson pledged to pay all expenses for the latter, costing an estimated £100,000. Stephen Hawking's zero-gravity flight in a "''Vomit Comet''" of Zero Gravity Corporation, during which he experienced weightlessness eight times, took place on 26 April 2007. He became the first quadriplegic to float in zero-gravity. This was the first time in forty years that he moved freely, without his wheelchair. The fee is normally US$3,750 for 10–15 plunges, but Hawking was not required to pay the fee. A bit of a futurist, Hawking was quoted before the flight saying: }} In an interview with ''The Daily Telegraph'', he suggested that space was the Earth's long term hope. He continued this theme at a 2008 Charlie Rose interview.

Existence and nature of extraterrestrial life

Hawking has indicated that he is almost certain that alien life exists in other parts of the universe and uses a mathematical basis for his assumptions. "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like." He believes alien life not only certainly exists on planets but perhaps even in other places, like within stars or even floating in outer space. He also warns that a few of these species might be intelligent and threaten Earth. Contact with such species might be devastating for humanity. "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. He advocated that, rather than try to establish contact, humans should try to avoid contact with alien life forms.

Illness

Stephen Hawking is severely disabled by a motor neurone disease known as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), sometimes known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Hawking's illness is markedly different from typical ALS because if confirmed, Hawking's case would make for the most protracted case ever documented. A survival for more than ten years after diagnosis is uncommon for ALS; the longest documented durations, other than Hawking's, are 32 and 39 years and these cases were termed benign because of the lack of the typical progressive course.

When he was young, he enjoyed riding horses. At Oxford, he coxed a rowing team, which, he stated, helped relieve his immense boredom at the university. Symptoms of the disorder first appeared while he was enrolled at University of Cambridge; he lost his balance and fell down a flight of stairs, hitting his head. Worried that he would lose his genius, he took the Mensa test to verify that his intellectual abilities were intact. The diagnosis of motor neurone disease came when Hawking was 21, shortly before his first marriage, and doctors said he would not survive more than two or three years. Hawking gradually lost the use of his arms, legs, and voice, and as of 2009 has been almost completely paralysed.

During a visit to the research centre CERN in Geneva in 1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia, which in his condition was life-threatening as it further restricted his already limited respiratory capacity. He had an emergency tracheotomy, and as a result lost what remained of his ability to speak. He has since used an electronic voice synthesiser to communicate.

The DECtalk DTC01 voice synthesiser he uses, which has an American English accent, is no longer being produced. Asked why he has still kept it after so many years, Hawking mentioned that he has not heard a voice he likes better and that he identifies with it. Hawking is said to be looking for a replacement since, aside from being obsolete, the synthesiser is both large and fragile by current standards. As of mid 2009, he was said to be using NeoSpeech's VoiceText speech synthesiser.

In Hawking's many media appearances, he appears to speak fluently through his synthesiser, but in reality, it is a tedious drawn-out process. Hawking's setup uses a predictive text entry system, which requires only the first few characters in order to auto-complete the word, but as he is only able to use his cheek for data entry, constructing complete sentences takes time. His speeches are prepared in advance, but having a live conversation with him provides insight as to the complexity and work involved. During a TED Conference talk, it took him seven minutes to answer a question.

He describes himself as lucky, despite his disease. Its slow progression has allowed him time to make influential discoveries and has not hindered him from having, in his own words, "a very attractive family." When his wife, Jane, was asked why she decided to marry a man with a three-year life expectancy, she responded, "Those were the days of atomic gloom and doom, so we all had a rather short life expectancy." On 20 April 2009, Cambridge University released a statement saying that Hawking was "very ill" with a chest infection, and was admitted to Addenbrooke's Hospital. The following day, it was reported that his new condition was "comfortable" and he would make a full recovery from the infection.

As popular science advocate

Hawking has played himself on numerous television shows and has been portrayed in many more. He has played himself on a ''Red Dwarf'' anniversary special, played a hologram of himself on the episode "Descent" of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', appeared in a skit on ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'', and appeared on the Discovery Channel special ''Alien Planet''. He has also played himself in several episodes of ''The Simpsons'' and ''Futurama'', and has had an action figure made of his ''Simpsons'' likeness. In 2008, Hawking was the subject of and featured in the documentary series ''Stephen Hawking, Master of the Universe'' for Channel 4. In September 2008, Hawking presided over the unveiling of the 'Chronophage' (time-eating) Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College Cambridge. His actual synthesiser voice was used on parts of the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking" from the 1994 album ''The Division Bell'', as well as on Turbonegro's "Intro: The Party Zone" on their 2005 album ''Party Animals'', Wolfsheim's "Kein Zurück (Oliver Pinelli Mix)".

Recognition

Acclaim

On 19 December 2007, a statue of Hawking by renowned late artist Ian Walters was unveiled at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, University of Cambridge. In May 2008, the statue of Hawking was unveiled at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cape Town. The Stephen W. Hawking Science Museum in San Salvador, El Salvador is named in honour of Stephen Hawking, citing his scientific distinction and perseverance in dealing with adversity. Stephen Hawking Building in Cambridge opened on 17 April 2007. The building belongs to Gonville and Caius College and is used as an undergraduate accommodation and conference facility.

Distinctions

Hawking's belief that the lay person should have access to his work led him to write a series of popular science books in addition to his academic work. The first of these, ''A Brief History of Time'', was published on 1 April 1988 by Hawking, his family and friends, and some leading physicists. It surprisingly became a best-seller and was followed by ''The Universe in a Nutshell'' (2001). Both books have remained highly popular all over the world. A collection of essays titled ''Black Holes and Baby Universes'' (1993) was also popular. His book, ''A Briefer History of Time'' (2005), co-written by Leonard Mlodinow, aims to update his earlier works and make them accessible to an even wider audience. In 2007 Hawking and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, published ''George's Secret Key to the Universe'', a children's book focusing on science that has been described as "like ''Harry Potter'', but without the magic." The book includes information on Hawking radiation.

Hawking supports the children's charity SOS Children's Villages UK.

Awards and honours

1975 Eddington Medal

1976 Hughes Medal of the Royal Society

1979 Albert Einstein Medal

1981 Franklin Medal

1982 Order of the British Empire (Commander)

1985 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society

1986 Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

1988 Wolf Prize in Physics

1989 Prince of Asturias Awards in Concord

1989 Companion of Honour

1999 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society

2003 Michelson Morley Award of Case Western Reserve University

2006 Copley Medal of the Royal Society 2008 Fonseca Prize of the University of Santiago de Compostela 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the United States

Personal life

Hawking revealed that he did not see much point in obtaining a doctorate if he were to die soon. Hawking later said that the real turning point was his 1965 marriage to Jane Wilde, a language student. After gaining his PhD at Trinity Hall, he became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. Jane Hawking (née Wilde), Hawking's first wife, cared for him until 1991 when the couple separated, reportedly because of the pressures of fame and his increasing disability. They had three children: Robert, Lucy, and Timothy. Hawking then married his nurse, Elaine Mason (who was previously married to David Mason, the designer of the first version of Hawking's talking computer), in 1995. In October 2006, Hawking filed for divorce from his second wife amid claims by former nurses that she had abused him.

In 1999, Jane Hawking published a memoir, ''Music to Move the Stars'', detailing the marriage and his breakdown; in 2010 she published a revised version, ''Travelling to Infinity, My Life with Stephen''. Hawking's daughter, Lucy, is a novelist. Their oldest son, Robert, emigrated to the United States, married, and has a son. After a period of estrangement, Hawking and his first family were reconciled in 2007.

His view on how to live life is to "seek the greatest value of our action".

Hawking was asked about his IQ in a 2004 newspaper interview, and replied, "I have no idea. People who boast about their I.Q. are losers." Yet when asked "Are you saying you are not a genius?", Hawking replied "I hope I'm near the upper end of the range."

Hawking strongly opposed the US-led Iraq War, calling it "a war crime" and "based on lies". In 2004, he personally attended a demonstration against the war in Trafalgar Square, and participated in a public reading of the names of Iraqi war victims.

Religious views

In his early work, Hawking spoke of "God" in a metaphorical sense, such as in ''A Brief History of Time'': "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we should know the mind of God." In the same book he suggested the existence of God was unnecessary to explain the origin of the universe. His 2010 book ''The Grand Design'' and interviews with the ''Telegraph'' and the Channel 4 documentary ''Genius of Britain'', clarify that he does "not believe in a personal God". Hawking writes, "The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second." He adds, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing."

His ex-wife, Jane, said during their divorce proceedings that he was an atheist. Hawking has stated that he is "not religious in the normal sense" and he believes that "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." In an interview published in ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Hawking regarded the concept of Heaven as a myth, stating that there is "no heaven or afterlife" and that such a notion was a "fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Hawking contrasted religion and science in 2010, saying: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

Selected publications

Technical

''Singularities in Collapsing Stars and Expanding Universes'' with Dennis William Sciama, 1969 Comments on Astrophysics and Space Physics Vol 1 No.1

''The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time'' with George Ellis, 1973, ISBN 0-521-09906-4

''The Nature of Space and Time'' with Roger Penrose, foreword by Michael Atiyah, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-691-05084-8

''The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind'', (with Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright, and Roger Penrose), Cambridge University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-521-56330-5 (hardback), ISBN 0-521-65538-2 (paperback), Canto edition: ISBN 0-521-78572-3

''Information Loss in Black Holes'', Cambridge University Press, 2005

''God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History'', Running Press, 2005 ISBN 0762419229

Popular

''A Brief History of Time'', (Bantam Press 1988) ISBN 055305340X

''Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays'', (Bantam Books 1993) ISBN 0553374117

''The Universe in a Nutshell'', (Bantam Press 2001) ISBN 055380202X

''On The Shoulders of Giants. The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy'', (Running Press 2002) ISBN 076241698X

''A Briefer History of Time'', coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow, (Bantam Books 2005) ISBN 0553804367

''The Grand Design'', coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow, (Bantam Press 2010) ISBN 0553805371

Children's fiction

These are co-written with his daughter Lucy.

''George's Secret Key to the Universe'', (Random House, 2007) ISBN 9780385612708

''George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt'', (Simon & Schuster, 2009) ISBN 9781416986713

Films and series

''A Brief History of Time'' (1991)

''Stephen Hawking's Universe'' (1997)

''Horizon: The Hawking Paradox'' (2005)

''Masters of Science Fiction'' (2007)

''Stephen Hawking: Master of the Universe'' (2008) ''Into The Universe with Stephen Hawking'' (2010) A list of Hawking's publications through the year 2002 is available on his website.

See also

Basic concepts of quantum mechanics

Many-worlds interpretation, or flexiverse

Susskind–Hawking battle – see Black hole information paradox

References

Further reading

A layman's guide to Stephen Hawking

Ferguson, Kitty (1991). ''Stephen Hawking: Quest For A Theory of Everything''. Franklin Watts. ISBN 0-553-29895-X

Highly influential in the field. A much cited centennial survey.

Pickover, Clifford, ''Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them'', Oxford University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0195336115

External links

Stephen Hawking's web site

Stephen Hawking's page on Academia.edu

The Life of Stephen Hawking – slideshow by ''The First Post''

Video: Stephen Hawking – discussion of two views of the universe

Videos: Stephen Hawking's concept of God, The role of God within the no boundary cosmology and Imaginary time

;Dated

Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God

Public Lectures, including debate with Roger Penrose 1996–2006

''Hawking celebrates own brief history'', 7 January 2002, BBC

"Leaping the Abyss", interview in ''Reason'' by Gregory Benford 2002-04-01

2002-03-24

''Black holes turned "inside out"'', 22 July 2004, BBC

''Return of the time lord'', Interview about "A Brief History of Time", 27 September 2005, The Guardian.

Stephen Hawking touches on God and science – Physicist says Pope John Paul told scientists not to study universe's origins msnbc June 2006

Press Release from the Catholic League on misquote of Pope by Hawking 2006-06-16

BBC interview 2008-12-05

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Coordinates	16°48′″N96°09′″N
name	Kevin Rose
nationality	American
birth date	February 21, 1977
birth place	Redding, California, United States
website	kevinrose.com }}

Kevin Rose (born Robert Kevin Rose, February 21, 1977) is an American Internet entrepreneur who co-founded Revision3, Digg, Pownce, and Milk. He also served as production assistant and temporary co-host at TechTV's ''The Screen Savers''.

Early life

Rose was born in Redding, California and lived in Oregon before his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he spent most of his childhood. He became an Eagle Scout with the Boy Scouts of America. Rose transferred to Vo-Tech High School in Las Vegas in 1992. He then attended the University of Nevada Las Vegas, majoring in computer science but dropped out in 1998. He worked for two dot-com startups through CMGI.

Career

Television

Rose was hired as a production assistant for ''The Screen Savers''. He began appearing on-air, most notably in "Dark Tip" segments, and on ''Unscrewed with Martin Sargent'' where he provided information on developing computing activities. He became a regular co-host when Leo Laporte left TechTV on March 31, 2004. On March 25, 2004, Comcast's G4 gaming channel announced a merger with TechTV which resulted in a round of layoffs. Rose moved to Los Angeles to stay with G4. On May 22, 2005, Rose reached an agreement with G4 that released him from his contract and went on to create Systm and later, Revision3.

Podcasting

Rose began podcasting on July 24, 2003, with the release of the first episode of ''thebroken'' while he was still working on ''The Screen Savers'' at TechTV. Rose founded Revision3 in Los Angeles, California with Jay Adelson and David Prager in April 2005. On July 1, 2005, Rose and Alex Albrecht started the weekly podcast, ''Diggnation'', which summarizes top stories submitted by Digg users.

Digg

In 2004, Rose, Owen Byrne, Ron Gorodetzky, and Jay Adelson formed Digg, a technology link website. The website was publicly launched on December 5, 2004. In 2007, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR35 as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35. On September 1, 2010, Rose was replaced as CEO by Matt Williams, a former general manager of consumer payments at Amazon. On March 18, 2011, Rose resigned from his position at Digg.

Pownce

On June 27, 2007, Rose launched a micro-blogging site named Pownce which was closed down in less than a year.

Milk

In April 2011, the technology blog TechCrunch reported on the funding of "Milk".

Investments

Rose invested in Gowalla, Twitter, Foursquare, Dailybooth, NGMOCO, SimpleGeo, 3crowd, OMGPOP, Square, Facebook, Chomp and Formspring.

Guest appearances

Kevin Rose appeared on the first episode of R&D; TV alongside ''Diggnation'' co-host Alex Albrecht. On November 14, 2007, he was a contestant on a game show at NewTeeVee Live. On March 11, 2009 and April 16, 2010, Rose was a guest on ''Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'' along with fellow ''Diggnation'' host Alex Albrecht.

References

External links

Kevin Rose's Official Site

Category:1977 births Category:Living people Category:American television personalities Category:American bloggers Category:TechTV Category:American Internet personalities Category:Eagle Scouts Category:People from San Francisco, California Category:People from the Las Vegas metropolitan area Category:Revision3 Category:TR35 winners

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