^^^ A pretty cool cat also
RIP

Hawking was of the opinion that 'Heaven 'is a fairy story'

So I would think by him there's no hell either.

I use that same computer voice myself, and people think I'm a lot smarter than I am. Just sayin'...

Prentke Accent 1400?

Yes- chicks dig it.

A brief history of time = the most sold unread book in the world. :) I think it is awesome that he had so much wit and was such a star, getting people interested in reading about physics.

In that case a wish for "Godspeed" should be replaced with "nothingspeed" and you don't rest, you rot in the ground?

RIP, sir.

The world is a lesser place, but I can't wait to hear about the newest Stephen Hawkings, wherever he/she is.

"The Theory of Everything" was a great way to spend a couple of hours. Have a look if you have a little time.

Why can’t it just simply be “he’ll be missed and we’re grateful for his example and contributions to science and society”?

We need more people like him - skeptics and promoters of reason and science.

You do realize there are other options then stuffing a body in the ground to rot, right?
I would think the most obvious alternative would be that the man donated his body to science...

And even if he didn't, what is so inherently problematic with rotting away in the ground and becoming the source for new life to begin?

In the end , everything we are, everything we put in our mouths, at some point was something else that died and/or grew from the soil in which something had rotted away. For me that's well enough, I have no problem with the concept that at some point my ego will no longer exist. I'm sure Stephen Hawkin with his brilliant mind and knowledge of the universe was fully capable to not believe in Heaven and accept that there is a beginning and an end of everything..
After all, that was his main body of work.

Me too, I sent him my string theory idea that vibrating strings are really camshafts such that the lobes are charged and it's the charge interactions that cause them to spin, much more elegant and lower energy than a vibration. He humored me, it was amazing, treasured.

We will all live forever anyway. Just not in the form we are in now. The atoms that make up you, me, and everything else in the universe, have been here since the start of the universe and will continue to exist until the end of the universe.

Oh...and I thought we all rot when buried, regardless of religion or race. Silly me.

No, he died.

I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first... I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

In some form or other. The original atoms become something else sometimes, energy maybe, usually heat result I think, and that never goes away. It just spreads out.

deGrasse-Tyson says each and every one of us breathe in atoms daily that were in Caesar's lungs when he said "Et tu, Brute". I know it's Shakespeare fiction but you get the idea.

Entropy.

Every atom in your body, every single thing you can see and touch is star stuff. Formed in stars and just recycled over and over and over.

Basic atoms existed prior to super novas. Helium, nitrogen.

There is still some legacy stuff kicking around.

+1 Anything remotely complex came from stars.

He is right there is nothing on the other side

A great man that will be missed, RIP sir!

Really guys, you couldn't just honor and admire him as one of the greatest minds ever.
You had to make this thread into a religious debate?

There is no religious debate, as one of the greatest minds ever he is right