Stephen Hawking's thesis on the universe caused... internet crash

As soon as scientist Stephen Hawking's doctoral thesis was made available for free download, the home page of Cambridge University (UK) crashed because too many people accessed it.

Astronomer Stephen Hawking. Photo: Reuters

On the night of October 23, Vietnam time, Cambridge University released online for the first time the content of Mr. Hawking's doctoral thesis from 1966, when this famous theoretical physicist was only 24 years old.

The thesis, titled "Properties of Expanding Universes," provides research on the origin of the universe, which is the work that made Mr. Hawking famous.

Almost immediately after being "free to download", the thesis became the most requested document on the school's website.

Due to a huge amount of traffic, the website of this prestigious university was paralyzed all day yesterday.

"We have had a huge response to Professor Hawking's decision to make his thesis available for download, with nearly 60,000 downloads in less than 24 hours. As a result, visitors to our Open Access section may experience slower than usual access, and may experience temporary disruption at times," a Cambridge University spokesperson told the Guardian.

As for Hawking, he said he hoped the publication of the document would help "inspire people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet; to wonder about our place in the universe, and then try and understand it," according to AP.

Stephen Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist and currently holds the position of Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology of the University of Cambridge.

He is also famous for his book A Brief History of Time, about the universe. This book is known as an "unread bestseller", meaning that many readers have owned it but most of them cannot "devour" the amount of scientific knowledge in it, or even can not read it all.

For many reasons, both in terms of his scientific contributions and personal image, Mr. Hawking is considered one of the most famous living scientists, with many books and even films about him.

It is unclear why Mr. Hawking published his thesis at this time. However, if we consider a heated debate in the space science community a few months ago, it can be seen that Mr. Hawking's thesis presents many possibilities to "confront" skeptics about the theory of the expanding universe as well as the Big Bang that gave birth to the universe.

Explaining the Big Bang. The bright spot on the left is the moment of the explosion, which led to the universe expanding in space for the past 13.7 billion years - the estimated age of the universe. Photo: NASA

Last May, Mr. Hawking and 32 other scientists wrote an "angry" letter in response to an article published in the scientific magazine Scientific American.

A group of 33 scientists asserted that the theory of inflation remains one of the best models that can explain the origin of the universe, according to Newsweek magazine.

Earlier in February, Scientific American published an article by a trio of physicists Anna Ijjas, Paul J. Steinhardt, and Abraham Loeb.

The article, titled "Pop Goes the Universe," argues against the inflationary theory of the universe, arguing that all its proponents are blindly believing in a theory that has no empirical evidence.

For a long time, textbooks in many countries around the world have used Big Bang as a theory about the origin of the universe.

According to the Big Bang theory and later the cosmic inflation theory, there was an explosion that took place 13.7 billion years ago to give birth to the universe. Since the Big Bang event, the universe has become extremely hot and "expanded" continuously until now (and will continue to expand). The galaxies in the universe therefore "drift" further and further apart.

But according to the trio of scientists mentioned above, the current universe must be explained by the "Big Bounce", that is, "a big turnaround/recovery".

Description of the Big Bounce. The universe will contract to its hottest point, then perform a "recovery jump" to expand again.

Accordingly, the universe is not just a primordial explosion and expansion forever, but operates in cycles. That is, when the cosmic energy is exhausted, it will return to its original state, then become extremely hot and extremely solid - condensed, leaving another explosion or event to expand.

According to TTO