Steven Hawkins in space...

Well there are countless other things that he's had to put up with. It seems a bit bitter to complain that someone is given a free trip because others have achieved as much. Do you also have a problem with dieing children going on free trips, as other children, that have acheived more, weren't invited?
 
Ok ill take the example of dying children, say a dying child donates there body to medical science after they die everyone is like "Oh wow that child wants to help others AND THErE DYING" if a child that isn't dying does the same everyone just goes "oh that's nice".

That's kind of like whats happened with steve. If he wasn't in a wheel chair not many people would care what he did except people who study black holes and all that stuff.
 
The man has battled adversity for most of his life, has furthered the publics understanding of physics to a greater degree than any other physicist of his generation and you begrudge him the one opportunity he has to loosen the shackles of his responsibility for the shortest of time.

Nice.
 
Maybe people wouldn't care who he was if he wasn't in a wheelchair. What is wrong with doing something nice for someone that has had quite a tough life (ignoring that this is probably just a way to get good press for the zero gravity company)? Did anyone claim that he was given the free flight merely on his merit as a cosomologist?
 
The parabolic flight was free, as far as I am aware the cost of the galactic trip is coming out of his own pocket.
 
Last I remember Einstein wasn't in a wheel-chair......
 
So you believe that the reason why Hawking is so well known is because he is one of the greatest scientists of all time. You know this not because of what he has acheived, but because you suspect he will do something in the future?
 
I believe he is so well known because very few men in the history of science have succeeded in furthering the understanding of science amongst laymen as he has. The fact that he has done this whilst battling an awful disease merely makes that accomplishment all the more astonishing.
 
I don't deny that and I'm not complaining that he had a free flight. I was merely pointing out that he isn't as highly thought of, as a scientist, as Newton, Einstein, and Planck etc.
 
Within his field his excellence may well be comparable, I'm not a student of theoretica physics and cosmology so I cant comment on the advances he personally has made, although the Royal Society did in 2006 award him their highest honour for outstanding research, previous winners of which includes Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein.
 
Back
Top