Among today’s physicists, Stephen Hawking is arguably one of the better known. I sometimes ask friends and colleagues why he hasn’t yet been awarded a Nobel Prize? Most people are at loss to respond.
The answer is related to the three pillars which have been the hallmark of science since the early 17th century:
(i) development of theoretical models,
(ii) expression of these models with mathematics,
(iii) verification by observation.
But today the third pillar is under threat, the principle of verification by observation.
