What a sad event :(

I wouldn't call it sad. He lived with ALS for 50 years, when he was expected to be dead within 5. He contributed massively to the world of astrophysics and our understanding of the cosmos. Though his body was infirm, his mind was at C. 76 is a very long time to live.

I agree with this. Rather than be sad at his passing, we should celebrate his contributions to the world, as well as the fact he didn't let ALS get in the way.

Yes, I think you are right.

R.I.P.

Wouldn't call it sad for the first reason only.
As for the contribution in our understanding...Well...i don't think so. His actual contributions will be left for us to judge when we are 100% sure of the existence of Black Holes.
but that's another issue and yes may he RIP.

I would call it sad that he is not with us anymore. He did lived a full life though. Fuller and longer than anticipated and even fuller and longer than most healthy men did. And contributed to the improvement of mankind on top.

Rest in peace, professor Hawking. Your contributions to science were massive, and you will be missed.

I usually encourage my students to avoid sentences like this. You see, the problem is that by formulating it this way it's not a physical dilemma. It's more semantics than physics.

We are 100% that objects that we commonly call "black holes" do exist. What we are unsure of is their nature. We have some strong theories, partially backed by observations but we are not certain yet. So it may happen that the nature of these objects is completely different than we think of them now. In this case we'll probably change their name to reflect our increased knowledge. So then, from semantics point of view we will say that black holes never existed. But from physical point of view we'll just have more information about them but we are already sure that objects like this exist.

So it's always safer to say: "when we are 100% sure what are black holes"

BTW: no need to capitalize it's not a proper but common noun.

Great scientist, great book-author and a person inspiring others never to give up! Farewell!

To die the same day than A. Einstein birthday and the Pi Day. Strange coincidence !
RIP Mr. Hawking.

I'm very sad to read about this :(.

That's exactly what i mean. The only thing we know is that there's some type of Energy at the spots where "Black Holes" are. Only this is what we know.
Everything else about wormholes, singularity points, Schwarzschild radii, etc is pure speculation.
Also good jokes about "not even light can escape" but then "we see Black Holes spitting out matter/beams"... To my mind is just BS. Of course i may be wrong, that's why i said we need more time to investigate and pull safer conclusions that reflect what's out there and not make some awesome sci-fi deductions that would make great Hollywood movies.

The thing is, you need those theories/hypothesis' first so you can proof them right or wrong in experiments. Otherwise you wouldn't know what to look for.