The voice of physicist Stephen Hawking was broadcast into space (toward the black hole 1A0620-00) after his memorial service on June 15, last year. I have no idea what utterances of his were selected, but for a science geek like me it surely could not have been more exciting than something he said nearly forty years ago. In 1980, Stephen Hawking received what is probably the most distinguished recognition a physicist can receive, short of a Nobel Prize. He was elevated to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University. Hawking's predecessors included Newton and Dirac. On the occasion of his inauguration he gave a speech on the state of physics in which he wondered aloud whether the end was in sight for its theoretical branch.
Mindful that such predictions had been made before, he concluded nevertheless that the answer might well be yes.
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