英國物理學家霍金逝世
美聯社援引史蒂芬•霍金(Stephen Hawking)家庭發(fā)言人的話報道稱，這位英國理論物理學家已去世，享年76歲。
Hawking - who lived with motor neurone disease since his 20s, leaving him in a wheelchair and using a computer to speak and write - was a former professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge and author of international best-seller A Brief History of Time.
霍金從20歲多起患上運動神經元疾病，只能坐輪椅，借助電腦來講話和寫作。他曾是劍橋大學(University of Cambridge)數學教授，同也是國際暢銷書《時間簡史》(A Brief History of Time)的作者。
He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1963 and told he had two years to live.
1963年，他被診斷出患有運動神經元疾病，并被告知還能活兩年。
Hawking’s self-proclaimed intellectual goal was strikingly ambitious: “Complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” He made important contributions to many of the big issues in cosmology, particularly the unification of the two great theories of 20th-century physics: relativity and quantum mechanics.
霍金自稱的學術目標非常有野心：“要完全理解宇宙，理解它為何是現在的樣子，以及它為何會存在。”他對宇宙學的許多重大問題(尤其是20世紀物理學的兩個偉大理論相對論和量子力學的統(tǒng)一)做出了重要貢獻。
His most original research concerned black holes — concentrations of matter so dense that light cannot escape from their gravitational pull. He showed that black holes are not just a bizarre theoretical concept but play an important role in the development of the universe. Indeed, they are not even quite black; they can emit radiation — known as Hawking radiation — and eventually they can even evaporate and disappear.
霍金最具獨創(chuàng)性的研究跟黑洞有關——物質密度達到很高程度，以至于光無法脫離其引力。他證明，黑洞不只是一個奇異的理論概念，而且在宇宙發(fā)展中扮演著重要角色。事實上，黑洞甚至不是很黑;黑洞會釋放出輻射——被稱為“霍金輻射”——最終黑洞甚至會蒸發(fā)消失。
In recent years Hawking had warned that artificial intelligence could “outsmart us all” but said he appreciated the benefits brought by the technology, such as the upgrades to communications devices that allowed him to write and speak twice as fast as before.
最近幾年，霍金曾警告稱，人工智能可能“比我們所有人都聰明”。但他表示，他很欣賞這種技術帶來的好處，比如通訊設備的升級，讓他能以比過去快一倍的速度寫作和說話。
