The history of science has seen many famous bets, which in turn help bolster some important theories.
Kip Thorne and Stephen Hawking, 1975
Black holes are one of the boldest predictions of the general theory of relativity that Albert Einstein formulated. A black hole is such a concentration of mass that its gravity is strong enough that nothing can escape. Stephen Hawking spent almost his entire career studying the theory of black holes. In 1975, he surprised by declaring that black holes do not exist in reality.
Specifically, Hawking bet astronomer Kip Thorne that the X-ray source Cygnus X-1 is not a black hole as people think. Thorne disagreed and demanded that Hawking donate a pornographic magazine if he won.
Finally, Thorne received the magazine in 1990, after clearly demonstrating the existence of black holes. Hawking happily conceded defeat because his own research also proved traces of black holes.
Alfred Russel Wallace and John Hampden in 1870
Most people believe that the Earth is round. John Hampden bets he can prove the opposite. Alfred Russel Wallace, famous for his pioneering contributions to the theory of evolution, accepted Hampden’s bet.
Alfred Russel Wallace won the bet when he thought the Earth was round. (Photo: New Scientist).
The two agreed to conduct an experiment that included measuring the height of the Old Bedford River in Norfolk, England, about 10km long. An independent observer confirmed the measurements showed a decrease in distance, demonstrating the curvature of the Earth’s surface. Hampden refused to accept the results and never paid.
John Preskill – Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne, 1997
In 1997, Hawking and Thorne made another bet, this time with Thorne’s colleague John Preskill. Again the subject is black holes. This time it’s the conundrum of whether black holes can destroy information.
Hawking and Thorne think it’s possible. This hypothesis contradicts quantum mechanics, which assumes that information cannot be created or destroyed. Preskill argues that black holes cannot destroy information. He believes they can break down the information they swallow, but destroying information is something general relativity does not allow.
The prize for the winner is an encyclopedia. Hawking lost his bet in 2004 when he said that the theoretical arguments were strong enough to convince information that it was indeed possible to escape from a black hole. Thorne still did not believe it, and so Hawking bought Preskill himself an encyclopedia without Thorne’s contribution.
Galina Mashnich – Vladimir Bashkirtsev and James Annan, 2005
Human greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause of global warming. This view is accepted by the majority of climate change scientists. In 2005, physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev of the Institute of Solar Physics in Irkutsk, Russia bet ,000 with British climate researcher James Annan.
Mashnic and Bashkirtsev suggest that global warming is related to solar activity. The winner was determined after comparing the average global surface temperature when the Sun was less active (between 2012 and 2017) with when the Sun was more active (from 1998 to 2003). If the temperature is higher, Annan wins. On the contrary, husband and wife Mashnich and Bashkirtsev won. Although 2017 is not over yet, the aggregated data so far shows that the victory is in favor of Annan.
Garrett Lisi and Frank Wilczek, 2009
Supersymmetry holds great hope for particle physicists as a general-purpose theoretical tool that helps solve many problems with the current “standard model” . The many new particles it predicts to complement what we already know could provide an identity for matter, a type of matter whose mass far exceeds that of ordinary matter in the universe.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland recently obtained much evidence of the existence of this physical world. However, this will be bad news for physicist Garrett Lisi, who in 2009 bet $ 1,000 with Frank Wilczek of MIT that the LHC could not find evidence for the supersymmetry hypothesis during the first six years of operation. motion. Meanwhile, Wilczek conceded defeat last year, though he still believes dark matter will appear soon.