It鈥檚 probably a first 鈥� the musings of a young physicist broke the internet. Last week, the PhD thesis of one of the world鈥檚 most famous scientists was made available online. Dated 1966 and titled 鈥淧roperties of expanding universes鈥�, it lays out the thoughts of Stephen Hawking at the start of his academic career.
As one of the most requested documents from the University of Cambridge in paper form, was intended to make its insights available to all and, predictably, the website hosting it crashed as millions rushed to download a copy.
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Just what do those delving into this document find? If you are used to the manicured appearance of a modern word-processed thesis, the style is quite jarring, with typewritten pages and many handwritten equations. There are no figures or images to ease the reading. But what about the science?
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Exploring the cosmos
Hawking does not focus on a single topic, but chips away at several distinct questions, all under the overarching theme of cosmology. Such an approach is not unusual when a young scientist explores potential avenues for ideas.
He opens with a salvo at a novel idea of gravity proposed by Fred Hoyle and Jayant Narlikar, showing it to be incompatible with the picture of an expanding universe. Hawking reprised that theme in a . At the time, Hoyle was one of Britain鈥檚 leading cosmologists and had already come into conflict with the much more junior Hawking, as dramatised in the 2004 TV film Hawking.
Hawking then turns his attention to the growth of clusters of matter and galaxies in the cosmos. He concludes that the universe cannot have been too smooth after its birth, because no structures would have formed and the universe would have been eternally featureless. The source of this primordial lumpiness was a mystery, but foreshadowed the for it that emerged in the 1980s as the idea of cosmic inflation took hold.
Next, he considers gravitational waves, examining how these are emitted and absorbed by matter in the universe. One has to wonder whether, when he wrote 鈥淸h]owever this is slightly academic since gravitational radiation has not yet been detected鈥�, he thought he would have to wait half a century for progress.
The closing chapter is probably of most interest to physicists, examining the idea of cosmic singularities. This work, later explored with Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose, considered the notion that expanding universes such as our own must have been born in an infinite density state 鈥� in which all the mass of the universe is packed into a tiny space, known as a singularity.
Interestingly, Hawking dithered over some results in this final chapter, neatly crossing out sections of text while inserting others. Such last-minute editing would be invisible in a modern word-processed document, but here it is prominently on display. It reminds you that Hawking is, like all scientists, human.
Improving access
It鈥檚 important to remember that, unlike the recently released documents relating to the 1963 assassination of US president John F. Kennedy, Hawking鈥檚 thesis has not been kept secret for the last half-century. It simply sat on a library shelf in paper form. Its electronic release is part of a move to make all of science more accessible, available to more than those who can get to the library.
Hawking has taken an important first step, hoping that his words will encourage and inspire the next generation. Many other scientists will surely follow.
