| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Hawking gives up academic title |
| 2009-10-05 |
| Professor Stephen Hawking has given up a prestigious academic title. The physicist, who has motor neurone disease, is completing his last day as Cambridge University's Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. The university said it was policy for holders of the title to retire at 67 and Prof Hawking was 67 in January. Prof Hawking, who is one of the world's leading cosmologists, will continue working at the university and a new Lucasian Professor will be appointed. Previous holders of the title, founded by MP Henry Lucas in 1663, include Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Babbage, Sir Joseph Larmor and Sir James Lighthill. Prof Hawking, who began work in Cambridge in 1962 and has held the Lucasian Professorship since 1979, is a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. He gained fame following the publication of his best-selling book A Brief History of Time in 1988. |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #6 I'll bet it's Dawkins (unfortunately). |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2009-10-05 17:16 |
| #5 IMHO, Hawking is somewhat of a charlatan, self-promoter, and general sob who has built his reputation on the backs of others. He's worked hard to erase reference to Jacob Bekenstein, who IMO deserves a Nobel, when he talks about (Bekenstein-)Hawking radiation. Considering all the adulation he's received, he has accomplished remarkably little, and has few notable awards. I'll be interested to see who will be the next Lucasian Professor. |
| Posted by: KBK 2009-10-05 15:53 |
| #4 Re #3: You've obviously visited my former hometown of Chicago (southside esp.) or on a much more minor scale my current hometown of Tucson (southside esp.). Territorial ritual killings are a mainstay in both for "da yoot". |
| Posted by: borgboy 2009-10-05 12:00 |
| #3 Something the Crisis Mongers don't want you to pay attention to. Checking census date will reveal we're all living longer and longer. In America, if certain communities wouldn't kill off their teenage and young adult males in lower primate territorial and behavior rituals, the life span data would be even more impressive. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-10-05 07:45 |
| #2 It has amazed me that Prof Hawking has lived this long with his health problems. An example for all. |
| Posted by: tipover 2009-10-05 01:42 |
| #1 How 'bout Joe Biden? He's always telling us how greater and greater numbers of people out of work is "a success." Got to be some advanced math in that... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2009-10-05 01:05 |