Feynman did it before Hawking

From: Jack Sarfatti (sarfatti_at_pacbell.net)
Date: 03/06/05 

Date: Sun, 06 Mar 2005 17:56:47 GMT

I am driving back to San Francisco from Santa Barbara in a few minutes
but I want to get this down while it's fresh in my mind. I just had
breakfast with Alan Lightman, a delightful Southern intellectual, and
equally delightful Marsha Bartusiak (both from MIT). We were discussing
Phil Morrison, Bethe, Salpeter - old days at Cornell. It got around to
Hawking and what he will be remembered for. Then Alan Lightman, author
of "Einstein's Dreams" told us the following "narrative" (big theme at
Kavli meeting hosted by David Gross, who actually is a GOOD ACTOR. He
did a scene as Feynman in QED - good job.

In 1972 before Hawking came out with the Hawking radiation formula.
Feynman was meeting with Kip Thorne's grad students, Bill Press, Saul
Teukolsky & Lightman. They discussed a recent calculation of shining
light on a rotating black hole and getting more energy out then in at
expense of decreasing rotational energy of the hole. They all went back
to Lightman's office. Feynman said: "Hey this is like stimulated
emission. So he went to black board and did a A & B coefficient model
and then when angular momentum J of the black hole J -> 0 there was
still "A" spontaneous emission and it was the later Hawking formula!

A maid erased the board that night before Lightman and the others
realized they should have written down what Feynman wrote. Not even
Feynman thought it was important enough to write a paper about apparently.

Relevant Pages

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    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Feynman did it before Hawking
    ... Then Alan Lightman, ... > In 1972 before Hawking came out with the Hawking radiation formula. ... > Feynman was meeting with Kip Thorne's grad students, Bill Press, Saul ... So he went to black board and did a A & B coefficient model ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Feynman did it before Hawking
    ... Then Alan Lightman, ... > In 1972 before Hawking came out with the Hawking radiation formula. ... > Feynman was meeting with Kip Thorne's grad students, Bill Press, Saul ... So he went to black board and did a A & B coefficient model ...
    (sci.math)