Keeper of the Red Pill

In 1999's The Matrix, Lawrence Fishburne's Morpheus famously offers Keanu Reeves' Thomas "Neo" Anderson a choice between two pills, blue and red. The blue pill will lead him back to his previous life, able to explain away the weird events he's undergone as a dream or hallucination. The red pill, on the other hand, will allow Neo to "stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember: all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."

Physicist Stephen Hawking, who died March 14 aged 76, would probably not have said he was able to show exactly how deep the rabbit hole of the universe goes, but he was most definitely someone who pointed out that it was a lot deeper than most people cared to imagine.

Hawking earned acclaim for, in the first place, outliving a 1963 diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS, commonly known as "Lou Gehrig's disease." About ten years later, some time after his initial diagnosis suggested he should be dead, Hawking found out something peculiar about black holes, those bottomless pits of gravity so strong that not even light could escape them: They leaked.

After applying quantum theory to the idea of black holes, Hawking's equations said that they would drizzle out radiation and particles over the eons until they eventually evaporated. Although there would never be any way to determine what those particles had originally made up, the particles themselves would somehow continue via what would be called "Hawking radiation." Like many great scientific discoveries, it was accidental; as the New York Times obit mentions, Hawking said he was not looking for these particles. “I merely tripped over them. I was rather annoyed,” which demonstrates why most universe-changing discoveries should be accompanied by British understatement.

Hawking radiation and its implications have been considered one of the markers on the path of "unification theory," or attempts to connect gravity, which seems to govern the universe on a larger and visible level, and quantum theory, which governs its at its smallest and most basic level. The relationship between gravity and quantum theory still puzzles physicists today and experiments continue to see if it is even possible to detect what individual quanta or particles would make up the force we call gravity.

The wider world came to know more of Hawking following the publication of his 1988 book A Brief History of Time. The popular explanation of some aspects of modern physics became a bestseller. It brought much wider attention to the man who had chosen to let his physical condition dictate neither his lifespan nor his ability to contribute to his field and the world around him. Copies of the book became ubiquitous; Spy magazine noted a spate of younger celebrities holding them while wearing clunky glasses as they sought to be taken more seriously. If you want to pick up your own copy, get a first printing with the Carl Sagan introduction, where he describes Hawking laboriously signing his name to the ancient roll of the Royal Society of London in a book that also bore the signature of Isaac Newton, and the response of the gathered scientists observing it. It’s a moving scene, but later editions only had Hawking’s own introduction.

In his other life as a pop culture phenomenon, Hawking appeared in person or by voice on several television shows with science appeal, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation. He played himself on episodes of The Simpsons and Big Bang Theory as well. He advocated for people with disabilities, reluctantly at first because he had not found his own life or work limited by his ALS. But when he realized how effectively he could demonstrate what disabled folks could do with proper help, he accepted a higher profile in such advocacy.

In later life Hawking showed a little more dyspepsia in some of his public statements. In a 2010 book he declared that the discipline of philosophy was “dead,” having failed to keep up with science. In 2014 interviews he labeled himself an atheist, although in Brief History he had been more open-minded about what, if anything, human beings might understand about the ultimate meaning of things around us. These later-life prejudices were unfortunate. At least one young traditional theist found his mind expanded when he first encountered the anthropic principle in History, and the Hawking who asserts instead of questions seems somehow smaller.

Hawking was inspirational even if he didn’t much care for the designation. His 1970’s work would have changed physics and cosmology had it come from a fully able scientist but it stands higher because it came from a man who wasn’t able to stand or write on his own and had to visualize the equations in his head while developing them. He leaves a legacy of great impact as a physicist and as a human being, and it seems to me that he did so in large part because in physics and physical limitations, he eagerly sought nothing less than the truth the proverbial red pill is supposed to offer. The universe is weird, and the human mind will not be limited by such things as physical handicaps unless its owners choose to let it be.

(ETA -- sorry about all of the typos. Originally posted from an iPad keyboard)