Published: 15 March 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Stephen Hawking’s love-hate relationship with Israel (Jerusalem Post)
British astrophysicist Professor Stephen Hawking had a love-hate relationship with Israel – the affection from the 1970s until about a decade ago, and the disaffection more recently.
He visited the country four or five times, even accepting the prestigious Wolf Prize in Physics 30 years ago. He disputed Hebrew University physicist Professor Jacob Bekenstein on whether a black hole can radiate.
But in the end the two physicists in the 1970s jointly developed the theory of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy – a measure of the unavailable energy in a closed thermodynamic system which is also usually considered to be a measure of the system’s disorder.
In 2006, he was guest of honour at a reception by the Israel Academy of Sciences and the Humanities at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel. But in his later years, he was influenced by American linguist, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic and left-wing professor Noam Chomsky, who, though born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Philadelphia, was regarded as a fierce anti-Zionist.
It was Chomsky who, because of his support of the Palestinian cause, reportedly persuaded Hawking not to speak at a 2013 Jerusalem conference hosted by then-president Shimon Peres.
A brief history of Stephen Hawking's complicated relationship with Israel (Haaretz)
Israeli academic inspired one of Stephen Hawking’s biggest discoveries (Times of Israel/JTA)
Scientist Jacob Bekenstein, who later taught at Hebrew University for 25 years, sparred with preeminent theoretical physicist before they cooperated on black holes
Photo: Hawking with former PM Ehud Olmert in 2006 (Kobi Gideon/GPO)
