
If you ever ponder about how Stephen Hawking saw this universe when he was a 24-year-old Cambridge postgraduate student, you can know it just straight from the source. To celebrate Open Access Week 2017, his 1966 doctoral thesis has been published online for everyone to read.
“By making my PhD thesis open access, I hope to inspire people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet,” says Hawking, hoping that giving free access to his early work will spark interests in both space itself and sharing research.
It’s not sure whether you will fully understand the Properties of Expanding Universes as it’s not a light reading. Hawking challenged an existing gravitational theory by using the expansion of the universe, providing a gravitational radiation and expansion model from which we can see that space-time singularities are “inevitable.”
According to Cambridge University, the paper, which it calls “historic and compelling,” was the most requested item for its open repository, receiving hundreds of request. In 1988, he published “A Brief History of Time,” which became one of the most successful books on science ever publishes. More than 10m copies of his book were sold in more than 40 languages. Making his early work available online is a great milestone for this generation of students. It will inspire other students to disclose their work without any fear.