When Hawking was still first doing work in physics, he worked with a partner named Roger Penrose from Birkbeck College in London. These two collaborated to create mathematical techniques to study general relativity in the area of cosmology. Eventually Stephen Hawking wanted to take these ideas and study black holes.

Using his earlier methods Hawking was brought to a discovery. With quantum theory and general relativity, it was proven that black holes can emit radiation. Quantum Theory is about the absorption and emission of energy by matter with motion by particles. Using the scale of atoms, molecules, and even elementary particles, quantum theory is used for circumstances where very small amounts are needed. It is observed that all energy forms are released in a small unit or bundle called “quanta”.  This is similar to the theory of relativity where extreme speeds are involved.  These two theories together are the basis of modern physics.

For the sake of black holes this means that if a mass is compact enough, it can create a black hole. This is caused by the deformation of space time. These theories combined can be used in Stephen Hawking’s investigation of the big bang theory, where all of the universe came from a single central point.

Big Bang!

Using these two theories Hawking predicted that a massive amount of objects which could weigh as much as 10^9 tons could be created. The crazy thing about this is that they could be only the size of a proton. The massive yet tiny black holes would have a huge gravitational attraction which is governed by the theory of relativity, and at the same time quantum mechanics applying to objects of this small size. This would lead Hawking to a later discovery called the “no boundary proposal”. In Hawking’s words it is explained as, “that both time and space are finite in extent, but they don’t have any boundary of edge….there would be no singularities, and the laws of science would hold everywhere, including the beginning of the universe.”