Hawking says he lost $100 bet over Higgs discovery

[LongTomH]

World-renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was interviewed on the importance of the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Hawking wants the Nobel Prize in Physics to be given to Peter Higgs, who gave his name to the proposed particle.

In an interview with the BBC Wednesday, Hawking, who has motor neurone disease, said: "This is an important result and should earn Peter Higgs the Nobel Prize.

"But it is a pity in a way because the great advances in physics have come from experiments that gave results we didn't expect.

"For this reason I had a bet with Gordon Kane of Michigan University that the Higgs particle wouldn't be found. It seems I have just lost $100."

//snip

"If the decay and other interactions of this particle are as we expect, it will be strong evidence for the so-called standard model of particle physics, the theory that explains all our experiments so far," Hawking said.

[longship]

1. What a humble, wonderful person.

But that's what science is all about. The ot authority in science is nature herself. Hawking has recognized this for decades. But that hasn't stopped him from keeping-on keeping-on looking for more answers to these knotty questions.

He does all this while being probably the most long lived person with motor neuron disease (aka Lou Gehrig's disease). He does what he does in the face of adversity and with a great sense of humor.

Oh! And he has a history of making these frivolous bets. Just for fun.

Wonderful!

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Bank of America thought Hawking would win -- lost $24 billion in "bet swap" derivatives. nt

[knitter4democracy]

3. That's University of Michigan.

Otherwise, it looks like Michigan State University (which has the better subatomic physicists by a long margin--just sayin').