Have you ever really wanted to ready Stephen Hawkings’ Ph.D. thesis? Well now you can try, because the University of Cambridge has made his work, Properties of Expanding Universes, free for anyone.
The only problem is the demand for the free thesis cause the university’s website to crash, according to Mashable.
Hawkings’ thesis is the most requested item in Cambridge’s online Open Access repository. Hawking himself told Cambridge that he made the decision in the hope of inspiring “people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet,” according to Gizmodo. Hawking is well-known in both the science and pop culture communities. His book, A Brief History of Time, has sold 10 million copies, reports Gizmodo, and he has been referenced on Big Bang Theory and The Simpsons. He is also the subject of The Theory of Everything, which won an Oscar.
Gizmodo writes that Hawkings most famous idea if probably “Hawking radiation,” which is the theory that links the “mathematics of gravity with quantum physics to conclude that black holes evaporate by spitting out particles from their surface.” This theory, and some of Hawking’s other ideas, still cause international debate today.
Hawkings is now 75-years-old, and has been battling amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“Lou Gehrig’s Disease” or ALS) for 50 years. Most patients with ALS rarely survive a decade, Gizmodo writes.
Cambridge University encourages students to make their Ph.D. thesises open access when they deposit it online. Hawkings’ thesis is 120 pages.
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