Hawking Sends Preskill Baseball Book after Losing Black Hole Bet

John Preskill is an astrophysicist at CalTech, and it seems he was right and Stephen Hawking, who holds Sir Isaac Newton's old chair at Cambridge, was wrong about black holes. Apparently, they don't destroy all matter that enters them. This settles a 29-year-old bet the two had, and Professor Preskill's prize is Total Baseball, The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia. What is more interesting is how the matter was settled -- Professor Hawking proved himself wrong and cheerfully admitted it at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin.

The conundrum, which readers may be assured has been explained in very small words in short sentences to the media, lies in subatomic physics. The rules at the subatomic level say that black holes can't destroy everything. Instead, according to Professor Hawking, black holes deteriorate over time and give up their contents in very mangled form. This means that baby universes and space travel to other universes via black holes is impossible. The Kensington Review can say that it agrees with Professor Preskill wholeheartedly and with perfect accuracy and understanding when he said, "I'll be honest, I didn't understand the talk."

However, the episode does shed light on the way scientists operate, and how more politicians and business leaders should. Professor Hawking truly believed something was so. After almost 30 years, he had the evidence that he himself produced that proved he was wrong. Rather than spin the information, or bury it, Professor Hawking presented it to the entire world at a conference of people. This will not lose him his chair at Cambridge, nor will it cut into sales of A Brief History of Time. It will not diminish his reputation among his peers (a very small and select group), and indeed, it will burnish it. Not all scientists act like this, but there isn't one among them who thinks Professor Hawking is a fool for owning up to error.

Compare that to the fields of business and politics. The man who is President of the United States of America for the past three plus years can't think of a mistake he has made when asked in a press conference. His second-in-command, Mr. Cheney, maintains there was an Iraqi link to Al-Qaeda -- despite inquiries in both the UK, America and a brand new one from Australia that say the opposite. In the interest on non-partisanship, Mr. Clinton chose to debate the meaning of the word "is." In business, there are ad campaigns by oil companies to suggest they are fighting pollution, CEOs and CFOs who fire workers due to hard times while pocketing multi-million dollar bonuses, and fast food chains who advertise salads as healthy choices, while offers dressings that make them worse than the burgers and fries on the menu.

The problem is not that the "hard" sciences of physics and chemistry have right and wrong answers while the human world does not. There are some metaphysical truths in the world of politics and business as well -- not everything is opinion. However, some have a vested interest in a certain solution, a certain answer that may not be the truth. The commitment is to self and not to what is accurate. Every philosopher in the history of the field has had the same opinion about that, so reiteration is meaningless.

As a footnote, Professor Hawking did try to welsh in a small way. Finding the baseball book in the UK wasn't easy, and he tried to get off with a book on cricket. He said, "I had great difficulty in finding one [the baseball encyclopedia] over here, so I offered him an encyclopedia of cricket as an alternative, but John wouldn't be persuaded of the superiority of cricket." And some things will forever remain matters of opinion.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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