Stephen Hawking, who died Mar. 14 — Albert Einstein’s birthday and Pi Day — had a brilliant mind and a puckish sense of humor.
有着聪明头脑和古怪幽默感的斯蒂芬·霍金于3月14日去世，这日也是阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦的生日和圆周率日。
Gary Horowitz experienced it firsthand. Now a UC Santa Barbara physicist, Horowitz was a postdoctoral scholar when Hawking invited him to Cambridge for six weeks. At a social gathering, Horowitz recalled, Hawking was the life of the party, telling jokes and proffering puzzles for people to solve.
现加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校的物理学家加里·霍洛维茨讲述与霍金相处的亲身经历。当年霍金邀请身为博士后学者的他去剑桥参访六周，霍洛维茨回忆说，在一次社交聚会上，霍金是聚会的主角，他讲笑话，提出论题供大家探讨。
In a later visit to Cambridge, Horowitz saw up close Hawking’s memory at work.
之后再访问剑桥，霍洛维茨在工作中老是不停的想起霍金。
“Stephen was of course the Lucasian Professor of Physics, a chair held by Isaac Newton, and he was explaining this to me and he proceeded to say, ‘Well I’m the current Lucasian Professor.’ Then Stephen just proceeded over tea to recite and tell me every single Lucasian Professor of Physics back to Newton. He just knew them all.”
“毫无疑问，斯蒂芬是卢卡斯物理学教授，这是曾经艾萨克·牛顿的职位，他向我解释道，‘我是现任的卢卡斯教授。’然后，斯蒂芬边喝茶，边背诵从牛顿开始的每一个卢卡斯物理教授。他认识他们所有人。”
Reinventing theoretical physics
理论物理学的再发明
Other UC Santa Barbara physicists who worked with Hawking also remember him for his sociability and recall, but, more importantly, for his keen insights into theoretical physics.
其他与霍金合作过的加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校的物理学家也因他的社交能力和记忆力对他记忆深刻，而更重要的是他对理论物理学的敏锐洞察力。
“It was the totality of the interactions with Stephen that was the important thing for me,” said James Hartle, who worked with Hawking for decades. Among their many collaborations, the best known is a theory of the beginning of the universe. “Appreciating his keen insight into physics, the fact that he knew the right question to ask, the fact that he knew what to give up to provide an answer to that question, which was just as a hard as knowing the right question; his love of surprises.
“对我来说，最重要的事就是与斯蒂芬的互动，”詹姆斯·哈特尔说，他与霍金共事了几十年。在他们的众多合作中，最著名的是宇宙起源理论。“我欣赏他对物理学的敏锐洞察力，他知道该问什么样的问题，他知道该放弃什么来回答这个问题，实际上这就像知道正确的问题一样难；他喜欢惊喜。
“Stephen knew both what was the right question to ask and what’s the thing to give up, like black holes aren’t black,” Hartle continued, in this case referring to Hawking’s discovery that black holes can radiate and become smaller. “To have somebody like that — of course, it was a pleasure to work with him — you really make progress much faster than staggering around wondering.”
“斯蒂芬知道什么是正确的问题，也知道什么是应该放弃的东西，这就像黑洞不是黑色的一样，”哈特尔接着说。在这个例子中，霍金发现黑洞可以辐射并变小。“当然，和这样的人一起工作是一种乐趣，你真的比蹒跚而行的进展要快得多。”
Decades-long collaboration
数十年的合作
Hawking’s relationship with UC Santa Barbara was longstanding, beginning in the 1980s. For many years, he was a regular visitor to campus. In 1994, Hartle, then director of the campus’s Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, launched a public lecture series to make physics accessible to a broad audience. Invited by Hartle to give the inaugural talk, Hawking did exactly that. He spoke to a capacity crowd at Campbell Hall.
霍金与加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校的关系由来已久，始于20世纪80年代。多年来，他一直是校园的常客。1994年，时任学校卡夫利理论物理研究所主席的哈特尔为让更多人了解物理学，举办了一系列公开讲座。霍金在哈特尔的邀请下做了首场演讲。他在坎贝尔大厅对大众发表演说。
“We worked together on a number of different things, black holes and various ideas,” Hartle said of Hawking. “But probably the main thing that we’re known for is the quantum mechanical story at the beginning of the universe. Thanks to work by Stephen and Roger Penrose, the equations of classical physics are known to break down as you extrapolate them backward in time to the Big Bang. Something has to replace the classical equations there to have a complete theory of physics. Quantum mechanics is the likely culprit. But if the universe is a quantum mechanical system, it has a wave function. Stephen and I proposed one particular wave function of the universe, which agrees with the experiment and observations. That wave function is a theory of the beginning of the universe.”
“我们在不同的事物、黑洞问题和各种想法上共同努力，”哈特尔在谈到霍金时说道。“但也许我们最主要的研究还是宇宙起源的量子力学史。在和斯蒂芬、罗杰·彭罗斯一起工作的过程中，我们发现当你把经典物理学方程式的时间延后至大爆炸时，它就无法成立。必须有一个完整的物理理论来取代经典方程式。量子力学可能是罪魁祸首。但是如果宇宙是一个量子力学系统，它就有一个波（动）函数。斯蒂芬和我提出了一个特殊的宇宙波（动）函数，它与实验和观测相一致。这个波（动）函数就是宇宙起源理论。”
“Stephen’s achievements were spectacular,” Horowitz said. “His discovery of the black hole radiation has really dominated an area of theoretical physics for 40 years. It has raised very deep questions that we are still trying to answer.”
“斯蒂芬的成就是惊人的。” 霍洛维茨说道，“他对黑洞辐射的发现，在理论物理领域已经占据了40年的主导地位。它提出了我们仍在努力回答的深层次问题。”
Physicist exchange
物理学家间的交流
With an exchange program that brought Hawking’s students to UC Santa Barbara and sent UC Santa Barbara students to study with his group at Cambridge, Hawking had a direct impact on the study of physics at the Santa Barbara campus.
通过交流项目，霍金的学生受邀来到加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校，同时加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校的学生也与他的小组在剑桥一起学习，霍金对圣塔芭芭拉大学的物理研究产生了直接影响。
“He added directly to the UC Santa Barbara physics experience and to the experience of our students and postdocs after they left UC Santa Barbara,” said UC Santa Barbara physics department chair Don Marolf. “Hawking taught us all to keep our eye on the big picture and ask the big questions and try to look for full answers.”
“他把物理研究经验毫无保留地加持给了UCSB物理系，学生和博士后，让他们毕业后有足够的理论基础。” 加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校的物理系主任唐·马尔夫说道，“霍金教导我们所有人要关注大局，问全局问题并寻求完整的答案。
Added Horowitz: “I just think he’s such an inspiration. He had all these hardships in life and he didn’t give up or wallow in self-pity. He just kept pushing forward and doing what he wanted to do. He loved physics; he wanted to talk to physicists; he wanted to keep interactions. In addition to all the great insights he’s given us, he’s just been a great inspiration to keep going and pursue our dream of understanding nature.”
霍洛维茨补充道：“我只是觉得他是很励志的。他经历了生活中的种种磨难，却未曾放弃或沉溺于自怜之中。他只是不断前进，做自己想做的事。他喜欢物理；他想和物理学家交谈；他想保持互动。除了所有他带给我们的伟大见解，他一直是一个能鼓舞人心的人，不断前进，追求那些我们想要认识自然的梦想。
