26th Oct 2014.
the Much Touted First Post of Stephen Hawking on Facebook...
Posted on the 26 October 2014 by Sampathkumar Sampath
Strange are the ways of people – many do not have time to
walk around the streets, talk to thy neighbor or office colleague – but have
ample time to bury their neck into the Social networking – Facebook to be
precise. Facebook has become so much a part of our life now that it’s so
prevalent across the world. With close to a billion users out there, one can
easily throw a stone and hit a Facebook user. The amount of time users engage
in Facebook activities, like updating statuses, posting photos, commenting and
‘liking’ posts has also been increasing with smartphones has become commonplace in recent years. It is strange that at a time when many
netizens have great concerns over the issue of privacy online, many people voluntarily share deepest secrets about their intimate lives and
post private photos on Facebook. In the world
of FB, they seek social affirmations from networking friends !
Most likely that all your family members have FB accounts (some have
multiple fake accounts too !) …. My friend’s status once read “என் பொண்டாட்டி
வலையில் விழுந்துட்டா !!(can translate literally into ‘my wife has
fallen in to my trap / net … actually meaning her joining the web of FB)…..
those with very high number of friends can often miss out the posts of friends,
as you get to see the recent posts and when you have thousands of friends and
on your page falls the posts of ‘friends of friends too’ !!! - in such a World can you imagine a post
making waves with FB itself trending and it getting mentioned in all newssites
including Times. The favourite
comment on the page is quoted to have come from Pamela Hughes. She took the time to how Facebook can alter
time: "Beware, facebook can teach you all about time dilation...You can
spend an hour checking pages and reading articles and suddenly discover that 8
hours have passed in the real world."
In the modern World even
agnostics visit this place frequently and get into huddle – and it is post of
Hawking that is making sensational news. His welcome post read: "I have
always wondered what makes the universe exist. Time and space may forever be a
mystery, but that has not stopped my pursuit. Our connections to one another
have grown infinitely and now that I have the chance, I'm eager to share this
journey with you. Be curious, I know I will forever be." You might expect
that someone who seeks the answers so vigorously would quickly gain followers.
He's already amassed more than 1.3 million likes. Reports
proclaimed that 24th Oct 2014 is a big day for social media as Queen
Elizabeth II sent her first tweet, and Stephen Hawking posted his first
Facebook message. Though the world-renowned theoretical physicist officially
joined the site on Oct. 7 but didn’t
share anything until today:
Hawking’s plunge into the
infinite social media abyss is certainly well-timed. The Theory of Everything,
the film about the scientist’s personal and professional life, comes out in
just a few weeks. Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA is an English theoretical physicist,
cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical
Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. Among his significant scientific works have
been a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems
in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that
black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the
first to set forth a cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of
relativity and quantum mechanics. Hawking is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal
Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a
recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in
the United States. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the
University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009.
Hawking has achieved
success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories
and cosmology in general; his ‘A Brief History of Time’ stayed on the British Sunday Times
best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Over the years, Hawking
maintained his public profile with a series of attention-getting and often
controversial statements: he has
asserted that computer viruses were a form of life, that humans should use
genetic engineering to avoid being outsmarted by computers, and that aliens
likely exist and contact with them should be avoided.
26th Oct 2014.
26th Oct 2014.