Quiz on Stephen Hawking

In which scientific field did Stephen Hawking spend his career?

• Cosmology ✓ (Correct answer)
• Chemistry
• Robotics
• Geology

Source: Hawking studied the universe at its largest scales, especially the physics of black holes and the Big Bang.

What was the title of Hawking's famous 1988 bestseller?

• Cosmos
• The Universe Story
• A Brief History of Time ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Elegant Universe

Source: It sold over 10 million copies despite famously being a book many people bought but never finished.

What progressive disease did Hawking live with for decades?

• Parkinson's
• ALS ✓ (Correct answer)
• Multiple sclerosis
• Epilepsy

Source: Doctors gave him about two years to live at 21, yet he lived with ALS for over half a century.

What cosmic event did Hawking study as the universe's beginning?

• The Big Crunch
• The Big Bang ✓ (Correct answer)
• Heat death
• Cosmic inflation

Source: His doctoral work argued the universe expanded from a single point of infinite density.

How did Hawking communicate in his later life?

• Sign language
• A speech-generating computer ✓ (Correct answer)
• Handwriting
• Lip reading

Source: His robotic voice became so iconic he refused to update it, calling it part of his identity.

Which celestial objects were central to most of Hawking's research?

• Comets
• Black holes ✓ (Correct answer)
• Asteroids
• Nebulae

Source: He showed these objects aren't perfectly black: they slowly leak radiation and can eventually evaporate.

At which English university did Hawking hold his famous professorship?

• Cambridge ✓ (Correct answer)
• Edinburgh
• Manchester
• Bristol

Source: He held the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics, a chair once occupied by Isaac Newton.

Which animated sitcom featured Hawking voicing himself multiple times?

• South Park
• The Simpsons ✓ (Correct answer)
• Family Guy
• King of the Hill

Source: He appeared so often that he became one of the show's most frequent celebrity guest voices.

On which sci-fi show did Hawking appear playing poker with Einstein and Newton?

• Star Trek ✓ (Correct answer)
• Doctor Who
• Stargate
• Battlestar Galactica

Source: He is the only person to have played himself in the Star Trek universe.

With which family member did Hawking co-write children's science books?

• His daughter ✓ (Correct answer)
• His mother
• His brother
• His wife

Source: His "George" series for kids smuggled real cosmology into adventure stories.

Which 2014 film portrayed Hawking's life and earned its lead an Oscar?

• The Imitation Game
• A Beautiful Mind
• The Theory of Everything ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Man Who Knew Infinity

Source: Eddie Redmayne won Best Actor; Hawking lent the production his real synthesised voice.

What kind of mathematical point did Hawking and Penrose prove must exist?

• A singularity ✓ (Correct answer)
• A wormhole
• An event horizon
• A quasar

Source: Their theorems showed gravity inevitably crushes matter to a point where physics breaks down.

In 2007 Hawking experienced weightlessness aboard what kind of flight?

• A space shuttle
• A reduced-gravity jet ✓ (Correct answer)
• A high-altitude balloon
• A glider

Source: He floated free of his wheelchair on a 'Vomit Comet' flight, calling it pure freedom.

Hawking's PhD thesis argued the universe had what kind of start?

• An eternal one
• A cyclic one
• A beginning in time ✓ (Correct answer)
• No real start

Source: When Cambridge posted the thesis online in 2017, demand crashed the university's website.

Which physicist did Hawking famously make scientific bets with?

• Richard Feynman
• Kip Thorne ✓ (Correct answer)
• Carl Sagan
• Brian Cox

Source: Their playful wagers included a subscription to Penthouse magazine as the loser's prize.

Which honour, Britain's highest civilian order, did Hawking decline?

• A knighthood ✓ (Correct answer)
• The Order of Merit
• A peerage
• The Victoria Cross

Source: He reportedly turned down a knighthood, unhappy with the government's science funding.

What 'paradox' about lost information troubled Hawking for years?

• The twin paradox
• The information paradox ✓ (Correct answer)
• Schrodinger's paradox
• The grandfather paradox

Source: He spent decades debating whether black holes destroy information, eventually changing his own view.

What was the name of Hawking's first wife, central to his early life story?

• Jane ✓ (Correct answer)
• Elaine
• Lucy
• Mary

Source: Her memoir inspired The Theory of Everything, told largely from her perspective on their marriage.

What concept did Hawking propose to allow black holes to lose mass?

• Quantum tunnelling
• Virtual particle pairs ✓ (Correct answer)
• Dark energy
• Gravitational lensing

Source: Near the horizon, fleeting particle pairs split so one escapes, slowly draining the black hole.

Hawking hosted a 2009 party for time travellers that nobody attended. Why?

• He kept it secret
• Invitations sent afterward ✓ (Correct answer)
• It was cancelled
• Wrong date listed

Source: He only published the invitation after the party, reasoning that real time travellers would still show up.