Wanted: Africa's Einstein
2008-05-12 09:01
Karen Huxham
Cape Town - In spite of the discomfort it causes him to travel, Stephen Hawking has come to South Africa to promote the search for the "next Einstein" and the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS).
This is Hawking's first visit to Africa.
He gave a speech on Sunday in Muizenberg, Cape Town, along with two Nobel Prize winning physicists David Gross and George Smoot and Nasa's Administrator Michael Griffin.
The idea of the world's next Einstein stemming from Africa came from the man behind AIMS, Professor Neil Turok. The objectives of AIMS are to recruit and nurture Africa's best maths and science graduates.
AIMS in Cape Town is the first centre and the plan is to establish 15 other centres across Africa in the next five years. The next centre will be in Abuja, Nigeria. The centre aims to equip students to tackle African problems in biology, finance, development, cosmology and astrophysics, among other areas.
The ten-month programme is suitable for postgraduate maths and science students and a lot of emphasis is placed on mathematical modelling.
Hawking said of the AIMS project: "This institute will bring Africa to the cutting edge of science. The next Einstein plan is even more exciting. Its implementation will have a major impact on Africa's development.
"AIMS is teaching Africa to fish.
"Not only will this be vital for the continent (Africa), I believe it will be important for the future of science because science needs Africa's talent," Hawking added.
Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. He has asked many important questions in theoretical physics and cosmology, many of which he has also answered. He and fellow scientist Roger Penrose showed that spacetime began and ended in singularities - the Big Bang and Black Holes respectively.
Hawking has published a number of papers and several popular science books, most recently A Briefer History of Time in an attempt to make his previous book A Brief History of Time more accessible. These books tackle questions about the nature of the universe, time and space, how we got here and why we are here.
Hawking is almost as well-known for his mental strength and intellectual vigour as he is for his physical disability.
He has Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, sometimes called Lou Gehrig's Disease or Motor Neuron Disease), a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks the upper and lower motor neurones, leading to weakness and wasting away of muscles, decreasing mobility and difficulties with speech, swallowing and breathing.
For more information visit: www.aims.ac.za and www.nexteinstein.org.
- News24