[Opinion] Black Hole

It`s hard to find any thing in common among Sir Winston Churchill, Lord Byron, Lord Nelson, and Stephen Hawking. They are the people who were voted as Britain`s “Greatest Disabled Persons” last year in a BBC poll, and Dr. Stephen Hawking, the genius physicist, took first place in this poll.

It is quite questionable how many people have actually read his bestseller, “A Brief History Of Time” [after buying the book], but one thing very clear is that Dr. Hawking’s theory seems to be even greater because it came from a person who cannot speak a word without depending on a computer.

“Scientific discovery may not be better than sex, but the satisfaction lasts longer,” said Dr. Stephen Hawking in a conference to celebrate his 60th birthday. Although he devotes himself to a stuffy and serious scientific research field with his frail body, his sense of humor is excellent, "I will not compare it to sex - but it lasts longer."

In his lecture given in Japan, he quipped, “I was asked not to mention the possible re-collapsing of the universe because it might affect the stock market."

Even when he fell from his wheelchair and had a tracheotomy, an incision in his throat, without anesthesia and remained conscious during the surgery, he joked. “It was like hearing a Black and Decker drill. I had an argument with a wall a few days after Christmas and the wall won.”

His sense of humor shined a few days ago as usual while he was announcing his new thesis overturning his own black hole theory. “I`m sorry to disappoint science fiction fans, but if information is preserved, there is no possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes," he said.

Thirty years ago, he presented a groundbreaking theory in the black hole research field. Now he admits his theory was wrong. The new theory says that the information sucked into a black hole can come out. It is still difficult to understand for laypeople like us, who, not able to explain any context before and after of the story, might mumble, “[It is] trapped in a black hole,” whenever some incomprehensible things happen to us. But the occurrence of a prominent scholar announcing, ”My theory is wrong,” is a pleasant surprise to us.

Dr. Hawking once confessed that his life was boring before he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig`s disease at the age of 21. After that, he realized the world is full of valuable works and became able to enjoy the present. He also said he is happy to be alive and doing research. Perhaps his open-mindedness made him the Dr. Stephen Hawking that we now know.

We live in a society where we experience ideology tensions everywhere— among ruling classes, in the marketplace, and of course, in academia right now. When can we possibly hear someone admitting, “My theory is wrong”?

Kim Soon-duk, Editorial Writer yuri@donga.com