Sir Roger, 89, who won the honour for his seminal work proving that black holes exist, said he had found six ‘warm’ points in the sky (dubbed ‘Hawking Points’) which are around eight times the diameter of the Moon.
They are named after Prof Stephen Hawking, who theorised that black holes ‘leak’ radiation and eventually evaporate away entirely.
However, Sir Roger believes that ‘dead’ black holes from earlier universes or ‘aeons’ are observable now. If true, it would prove Hawking’s theories were correct.
Sir Roger shared the World Prize in physics with Prof Hawking in 1988 for their work on black holes.
Speaking from his home in Oxford, Sir Roger said: “I claim that there is observation of Hawking radiation.
“The Big Bang was not the beginning. There was something before the Big Bang and that something is what we will have in our future.
“We have a universe that expands and expands, and all mass decays away, and in this crazy theory of mine, that remote future becomes the Big Bang of another aeon.
“So our Big Bang began with something which was the remote future of a previous aeon and there would have been similar black holes evaporating away, via Hawking evaporation, and they would produce these points in the sky, that I call Hawking Points.
“We are seeing them. These points are about eight times the diameter of the Moon and are slightly warmed up regions. There is pretty good evidence for at least six of these points.”
The idea is controversial, although many scientists do believe that the universe operates in a perpetual cycle in which it expands, before contracting back in a ‘Big Crunch’ followed by a new Big Bang. (...)
Sir Roger proved that when objects become too dense they suffer gravitational collapse to a point of infinite mass where all known laws of nature cease, called the singularity.
His groundbreaking article is still regarded as the most important contribution to the theory of relativity since Einstein, and increased evidence for the Big Bang. (...)
Commenting on the prize, Prof Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, said it was sad that Prof Hawking had not been alive to share the prize.
“Penrose is amazingly original and inventive, and has contributed creative insights for more than 60 years.
“There would, I think, be a consensus that Penrose and Hawking are the two individuals who have done more than anyone else since Einstein to deepen our knowledge of gravity.
“Sadly, this award was too much delayed to allow Hawking to share the credit with Penrose."
by Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph/Yahoo News | Read more:
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