5 ms·
Well, two-way communication, sure. But his words and ideas will continue to be communicated for a very long time. He is one of the very rare human beings whose
by satori99 9y ago
Well, two-way communication, sure. But his words and ideas will continue to be communicated for a very long time.
He is one of the very rare human beings whose names will never be forgotten.
- mirkules 9y agoIt is said that a person dies three deaths: First, when their body stops functioning. Second, when their body is buried (or cremated). And the third and final death is when their name is uttered for the very last time in human history. I am fairly confident Stephen Hawking will have only died two deaths.
- purple-again 9y agoI was under the impression it was: 1) When your body dies 2) When you the last person who remembers you dies 3) When the last thing you impacted is gone Now existence has returned to a state as if you had never been at all.
- mirkules 9y agoIt could be. I first heard my version on a podcast (of course, I forgot which one), but looking around it is attributed to a Stanford professor David Eagleman: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/336070-there-are-three-deaths-the-first-is-when-the-body https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/336070-there-are-three-deat...
- Aloha 9y agoArguably he's probably there with Newton, Sagan, Darwin and Einstein
- pvaldes 9y agoI guess that a man that was self-declared atheist would not appreciate the religious concept of "all good people go to heaven when die". I can understand that is a comforting social convention in any case.
- prawn 9y agoIn before or instead of Sagan possibly? I was not particularly aware of Sagan before the internet, whereas I imagine Hawking has been a household name in much of the world for decades?
- gkya 9y agoShouldn't downvote this. Carl Sagan is nowhere as famous as the other three, probably except the US.
- pvaldes 9y agoSagan is a special case. Will be remembered (mainly) as a very good science communicator. Not so many people connect it with a famous and top-class scientist woman. The work of his first wife, Lynn Margulis, changed forever the concept of evolution. If we put Sagan with Darwin we should not forget to add Margulis to this list also.
- satori99 9y agoMy rule of thumb is whether or not you get your name attached to some physical phenomena. ie: Newtonian Physics, Hawking Radiation, etc.
- Aloha 9y agoThat's a fair yardstick
- pvaldes 9y ago> Not so many people connect it I wanted to say: connect him, obviously
- peatmoss 9y agoAside: My first encounter with Margulis’s Serial Endosymbiosis Theory blew my mind. I’d go so far as to say that SET changed my worldview. I’d always looked at evolution solely through the cold, brütal lens of selective pressure and competition. SET showed us, however, that symbiosis (i.e. fundamental cooperation) is right up there with competition... kind of a countervailing force within the story of evolution. I don’t know why, but I take great emotional comfort in that. Perhaps, being non-religious, it allows me to see something humane(?) encoded in the rulesets that govern change.
- pdcerb 9y agoAlthough Sagan was a great educator, Maxwell and Feynman deserve much more credit than him.