Science

Stephen Hawking to give NASA 50th anniversary speech

by William Atkins

Thursday, 17 April 2008

NASA has announced that British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking will speak at NASA’s Fiftieth Anniversary Event on April 21, 2008, at George Washington University. The event will be carried live on NASA Television.

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According to an April 15, 2008 NASA Media Advisory, Professor Hawking--who is a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow on Gonville and Cauis College, Cambridge--will be the featured speaker at a lecture to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The event will be held at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on Monday, April 21, 2008, at Morton Auditorium at George Washington University, Washington D.C. (United States).

NASA television (NASA TV) will broadcast the event live on the Web, along with broadcasting it from NASA Television through cable and satellite television.

A part of the NASA 50th Anniversary Lecture Series, the title of Professor Hawking’s speech is “Why we should go into space.”

The 50th anniversary NASA lecture series features well-known international speakers who will discuss the benefits of space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research while also talking about how they relate to such global issues as the economy, education, health, science, and the environment.

Hawking is well known in the scientific community for its work in the fields of quantum gravity and cosmology. He has theorized about black holes and other exotic objects in the universe. His bestselling book “A Brief History of Time” was, and continues to be, a very popular science book.

Hawking recently was in the news when he experienced weightlessness on April 26, 2007, while riding aboard a zero-gravity flight by the Zero Gravity Corporation.

For additional information on the flight, read the iTWire article “Stephen Hawking going weightless in ‘Vomit Comet’-like airplane ride.”

NASA was founded on July 29, 1958, as the result of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Act. It began operations on October 1, 1958. The mission statement of NASA is to "pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery, and aeronautics research.” NASA's motto is: "For the benefit of all". For more history on NASA, please read “NASA History.”

This article is based on the 4/15/2008 NASA Media Advisory "Stephen Hawking Speaks at NASA 50th Anniversary Event."

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