Saturday, 17 December 2011

Is it better to turn my computer off or leave it on all the time?

This is one of those questions where there is no single right answer. In other words, it depends on how you use your computer.

There are at least three situations that force you to leave your computer on 24 hours a day:

You are on a network, and the network administrators back up files and/or upgrade software over the network at night. If that is the case, and you want your machine backed up or upgraded, then you need to leave it on all the time.
You are using your machine as some sort of server. For example, HowStuffWorks has a machine that creates the images for the How Webcams Work article. It needs to be on 24 hours a day. If your machine acts as a file server, print server, Web server, etc., on a LAN(local area network) or the Internet, then you need to leave it on all the time.
If you are running something like SETI@home and you want to produce as many result sets as possible, you need to leave your machine on all the time.

If you do not fall into any of these categories, then you have a choice about whether or not to leave your machine on.

One reason why you might want to turn it off is economic. A typical PC consumes something like 300 watts. Let's assume that you use your PC for four hours every day, so the other 20 hours it is on would be wasted energy. If electricity costs 10 cents per kilowatt-hour in your area, then that 20 hours represents 60 cents a day. Sixty cents a day adds up to $219 per year.

It's possible to use the energy-saving features build into modern machines and cut that figure in half. For example, you can have the monitor and hard disk power down automatically when not in use. You'll still be wasting $100 per year.

The argument for leaving your computer on all the time is that turning it on and off somehow stresses the computer's components. For example, when the CPU chip is running, it can get quite hot, and when you turn the machine off it cools back down. The expansion and contraction from the heat probably has some effect on the solder joints holding the chip in place, and on the micro-fine details on the chip itself. But here are three ways to look at that:

If it were a significant problem, then machines would be failing all the time. In fact, hardware is very reliable (software is a whole different story, and there is a lot to be said for rebooting every day).
I don't know a single person who leaves the TV on 24 hours a day. TVs contain many of the same components that computers do. TVs certainly have no problems being cycled on and off.
Most vendors will sell you a three-year full-replacement warrantee for about $150. If you are worried about it, spend some of the money you are saving by turning your machine off and buy a service contract. Over three years, you come out way ahead!

Monday, 12 December 2011

10 Things to Look For When Buying a Laptop

In 1995, laptops were ugly. Not just ugly, but also heavy and expensive. A couple thousand dollars bought a small 4:3 screen, chunky keyboard and a hard drive measured in megabytes, not gigabytes. Thankfully, modern laptops are entirely different beasts. They're lighter, faster, infinitely more versatile and cheaper than ever. And there are a ton of them: In the first quarter of 2010, about 50 million tablets were sold worldwide [source: CNET].

The vast options in today's laptop market makes finding the right system a bit of a challenge. There are desktop replacement laptops, ultralights, high-end systems for gamers and cheap netbooks for taking notes. You have to know exactly what you're looking for.

Here's how you get started: Read through the next 10 pages to figure out what you should keep an eye out for in a new laptop. If you know why each of the next 10 features is important, you'll be prepared to pick the perfect notebook for your needs.

10: Analyze Your Usage Scenario

We're not all looking for the same qualities in a laptop, and the kind of programs you want to run determine your demands in the categories that follow. First, consider why you're buying a laptop. Is it to make PowerPoint presentations, take notes and do other simple business tasks? Or do you plan on watching HD movies, playing video games and video chatting with your friends?

Figure out how much you can afford to spend on a laptop and find the best system in that price range with the features you need. Our first example above, for business use, would be a pretty cheap laptop -- you can easily spend less than $1000 on a model that will run Microsoft Office and other productivity software. Another factor to consider: Do you want a Mac or a PC?

While Apple's laptops are pricier than many PCs, there are only a few Apple notebook models to choose from. Apple's extremely light MacBook Air models start at $1000 and are fast, capable machines, but lack disc drives unlike the larger, more powerful MacBook Pros. The least expensive 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1200, while the 15-inch jumps up to a pricey $1800.

If you're looking for a PC, there's a whole lot of hardware to be familiar with before you pick out a winning system. First up: battery life.

9: Battery Life

Laptop computing is all about mobility, and battery life is perhaps the most crucial consideration when picking a laptop that's going to be used regularly on the go. If you're in the market for a desktop replacement system -- meaning you'll mostly just leave it on your desk and don't plan on regularly taking it on trips -- battery life isn't quite as critical. Otherwise, pay close attention to how long a laptop's battery will last.

As laptops get slimmer and designers pay more attention to making them sleek and compact, more and more systems use integrated non-removable batteries. The trade off for that sleeker laptop body is that it's impossible to buy a backup battery and swap the two out to double battery life. Finally, always be skeptical of claimed battery life times. The numbers that laptop makers convey often refer to light usage with a dimmed screen. Assume you'll get 1 to 2 hours less than claimed while browsing the Web and running multiple applications -- and possibly even less if you're playing games or doing something else that taxes the computer.

The size and power of a laptop affects how much room there is in the body for a battery (and how quickly it's drained). Next up: finding that size and weight sweet spot.

8: Size and Weight

Heavy laptops kill mobility. In 2011, computer processor maker Intel began pushing an ultrabook category that focuses on lightweight systems -- usually weighing about 3 pounds (1.3 kilograms) -- to make use of its ultra low voltage CPUs. Ultrabooks do away with disc drives and focus on portability, long battery life and a starting price range of $800 to $1000. These laptops aren't powerful enough for some users, and do away with a disc drive others find important, but they demonstrate a trend towards lightweight notebooks that are extremely portable.

Pounds add up quickly. Most 15-inch (38-centimeter) laptops often weigh around 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms), which is a manageable weight to carry between home and the office every day. But some laptops creep up into the 7 to 8 pound (3.2 to 3.6 kilogram) range, and laptops that heavy can easily be relegated to at-home machines due to their weight.

There are a couple ways to get around the weight issue. You can always shop for a brand like Sony's Vaio, which makes weight a priority concern. The downside: Vaios are more expensive than other notebooks with similar performance. Second option: Go for a computer with a smaller screen.

7: Screen Size and Resolution

There are three common screen sizes in the notebook industry: 13 inches (33 centimeters), 15 inches (38 centimeters) and 17 inches (43 centimeters). The smallest in this group of laptops obviously prioritize portability, and often forgo DVD drives to make their bodies thinner and lighter. The mid-size category has a bit more range: Some heavier systems operate as desktop replacements, while others are light enough to still be easily portable while offering large screens. The largest category of laptops are, well, pretty huge. They always offer high resolution displays and powerful hardware, but can easily weigh up to 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms).

Generally, 15-inch (38-centimeter) and especially 17-inch (43-centimeter) laptops are large enough to be decent TV/computer monitor substitutes for watching video, especially on the go. Smaller notebooks, measuring 11 to 14 inches (27.9 to 35.6 centimeters) may be a bit small for watching movies, depending on your personal taste. More importantly, their displays are often lower resolution. The resolution is the total number of pixels contained in the display -- more pixels allow for more content to be displayed on screen at once.

Resolutions typically range from 1366 by 768 -- just a bit larger than 720p -- to 1920 by 1080, aka 1080p. Laptop makers will often use lower resolution displays to cut costs. On the next page, we'll get into the processor and graphics card, two other critical components. But if you're comparing two computers, go for the higher resolution screen when possible, or choose an HD upgrade option if it's available.

6: Processor and Graphics

A computer's processor determines how efficiently it can run programs, multi-task and basically do everything we expect of modern computers. Processors get faster and more efficient every year. Most Windows-based computers run on Intel's processors; smaller ultraportables, such as Apple's thin MacBook Air, run on ultra low voltage processors that draw less power than some of Apple's other chips. Quad-core chips deliver more powerful performance, but even dual-core processors are up to the task of playing 1080p video and running system-intensive programs like Photoshop.

The graphics processor, or GPU, is important when it comes to playing HD video and running games. Many laptops use integrated graphics rather than dedicated graphics chips. These are less powerful (and also less battery intensive), but powerful enough to decode 1080p video. Dedicated graphics chips are important for playing video games, but for the average computer user, the two components on the next page -- hard drive storage memory -- are more important.

5: Storage and Memory

For years, all laptops stored data on spinning physical discs called hard drives. Most of them still do, but faster solid state drives that use silicon-based memory are becoming more affordable and more prevalent in mobile computers. Becausesolid state drives don't rely on moving parts, they're more reliable in computers that tend to get bumped and jostled around. The downside: They're expensive and don't offer nearly as much data storage.

Storage space may not be a big concern for you -- if you store most of your data in the cloud and don't plan to load a computer up with gigabytes of music and video, a SSD or small HDD will suit you just fine. Random access memory (RAM) is a different story. Every piece of software running on a computer and the operating system itself (usually meaning Windows) stores data in RAM to function. The more RAM you have, the better -- it's smart to upgrade this component when possible. To run Windows 7, 4 gigabytes is a comfortable minimum.

Apple's MacBook Air and similar computers in the Ultrabook category of PCs are beginning to offer SSDs at reasonable prices. If you need more than 128GB of storage, best stick to a traditional hard drive, or be prepared to pay a pretty penny for an upgrade. Speedy SSD storage is fantastic, but in many cases going with a thin-and-light computer means giving up a disc drive and embracing the Internet cloud.

4: Do you need an optical drive?

Optical storage mediums have been key computer components since the first CD drives arrived on the scene, but cheap flash storage in the form of USB drives and cloud storage on the Internet have nearly eradicated their necessity. When was the last time you used a CD burner? Do you watch DVDs on your computer, or do you stream movies from Netflix? If you do either of those things regularly, or need to be able to burn DVDs or CDs for work, that's okay -- there are still plenty of laptops outfitted with CD/DVD combo drives. Blu-ray drives are even optional in a small selection of laptops, most commonly the media-focused 15-inch (38-centimeter) and 17-inch (43-centimeter) models.

If you're on the fence about needing a disc drive, educate yourself on cloud storage. Dropbox makes it easy to transfer files between multiple computers. Netflix makes it easy to stream movies and TV shows from the cloud. Spotify, Rdio, iTunes Match and a host of other music services allow you to stream music to your computer as long as you have an Internet connection. And there's always the option of using an external hard drive or flash drive to transfer files from a computer that does have a disc drive.

That brings us to another important consideration: making sure your laptop has all the ports you need.

3: Ports and Expandability

Every computer user is familiar with the USB port, but not everyone is aware that a much faster update to the standard, USB 3.0, is slowly spreading through the computer industry. USB 3.0 can be 10 times faster than its predecessor in real-world usage, delivering transfer speeds of up to 400 megabytes per second [source: EverythingUSB]. Even if you don't own any USB 3.0 hardware right now, consider future proofing when buying a new laptop. You might be really thankful you have that USB 3.0 port down the road.

There are other ports to consider as well. Do you want HDMIto output video to a TV? Do you need an SD card slot for downloading digital camera photos to your laptop? Will you need an Ethernet port for Internet or will a laptop's built-in WiFi connection be enough?

If you plan on keeping a laptop for several years, learn how customizable or expandable it is. For example, Apple's laptops are known for their build quality -- and for being locked down and difficult to perform maintenance on. The batteries are integrated, rather than removable. Many PCs have removable batteries that can easily be swapped out or replaced.

Google your laptop to see if owners have found it easy to add additional RAM or swap out the hard drive. Either of those upgrades could give your laptop an extended lease on life sometime down the road, but some casings are much easier to open up than others. On a similar note, some laptops are especially designed to keep your data more secure. That's our next topic.

2: Security Features

We keep mountains of personal information on our computers. There's always a risk when storing information digitally and on the Internet, but laptops elevate that risk by being much easier to steal than desktop machines. Some laptops, specifically those aimed at business and enterprise users, are built with these concerns in mind. For example, fingerprint scanners are found on plenty of business PCs and require users to pass a scan before logging into the operating system.

Many laptops also include Kensington security slots. Security cables are attached to these slots to bolt a laptop to a table or kiosk. Ever look at laptops at a store like Best Buy? Then you've probably seen one of these in action. Durability is another factor when it comes to security: To ensure no data loss happens due to a butterfingers moment, Panasonic sells ToughBook laptops designed to survive a nasty drop onto unforgiving concrete.

Laptop security features can help protect you, but never assume they'll keep your data safe from determined crooks. Being careful with your laptop is the best way to protect it. And that brings us to our final tip: choosing a warranty and judging laptop release cycles to know when to buy.

1: Warranty and Release Cycles

Buying consumer electronics is always a battle against irrelevancy. It's tough to buy something that will be outdated in just a few months, but there's always new gear just beyond the horizon -- you can't put off a purchase forever. To maximize the value of a laptop purchase, buy shortly after a product refresh. New systems usually come out shortly after Intel launches new processors. Look up review for laptops. See a model that was highly rated but came out nine months ago? A newer version will probably be along within a few months. Don't buy a laptop months into its release cycle unless you're shopping on a budget and spy a killer deal.

Picking a warranty isn't an easy decision, either. If you're clumsy and accident prone (or paranoid), opting for a long warranty will put your mind at ease. But it will also cost you an extra hundred dollars or more, depending on the kind of coverage you choose. Total coverage packages for accidents are expensive, but you'll be glad you have it if you accidentally step on your screen and break the LCD. And there's nothing wrong with going for the cheapest limited warranty you can -- just don't drop your new laptop!

Saturday, 10 December 2011

How Lying Works

When you're young, there's one lesson that gets hammered into you more often than others: Tell the truth. Tell the truth, you're told, and everything will be OK. Then why does Mom call her boss claiming to be sick when she's not, and why does Dad say Mom's dress doesn't make her look fat? The lesson didn't stick for them when they were little, and it didn't stick with you or me, either.

Lying isn't a sign of moral depravity (except when it is). Lying is a sign of cognitive advancement. It requires a fertile and high-functioning brain to take something as simple as the truth and twist it, palming off the deception on someone else with the earnestness of a choirboy.

The problem with the truth is that it doesn't always serve our purposes, further our careers or keep us out of trouble. When you can take the route made of imagination, best-case scenarios and wish fulfillment, you'd be nuts not to take a deceitful stroll toward your goals, right?

Younger children believe that they're always being watched, and that Mom (or some other authority figure) knows all. For this reason, they're initially more inclined to tell the truth. As they get a little older, they begin experimenting with lies: The dog is blue, my shirt is made of copper, the cookie told me so. For the very young, lying is a series of cause-and-effect experiments. When does a lie work? What kind of lie? What is a believable lie? Is the jig ever up, or should I keep lying until the truth is just a vague memory for all parties?

Around age 2 or 3, children realize that they're not under constant observation by an all-knowing, all-seeing Eye of Truth. A typical 4-year-old stretches the truth once every two hours, while 6-year-olds will tell a whopper every 90 minutes [source: Bronson]. They're applying their earlier lie studies toward the general goals of all truth-stretchers: gaining advantage, staying out of trouble and "bigging" themselves up in the eyes of others. As children become older, they become more skilled at deception. And they never really stop. Continue reading to learn the truth, or something like it, about lying.

The ability to lie is a cognitive accomplishment. While we look down on the practice from a moraland ethical point of view, lying isn't normally done without a pretty good motive. Lies are told for some of the following reasons:

To conceal misdeeds and stay out of trouble

to preserve reputation

To avoid hurting someone`s feelings

Tor increase stature and reputation

To manipulate

To control information

Signs of Deception

There is no single telltale sign of lying, but rather a constellation of possible signs that may "leak" from the liar during the act. We'll discuss both verbal and nonverbal signs of lying in this section.

First, we'll examine some nonverbal signs of lying. One sign that escapes most people is the flashing of a microexpression.Microexpressions are superquick expressions that cross over people's faces against their will and without their awareness. These provide a true look at their honest feelings about a matter. While most people aren't looking for such clues, a good many of us detect them without knowing what just happened. The information we glean -- detecting a millisecond-long look of anger in the middle of a smile -- is often chalked up to intuition or a "gut feeling." If your "gut" is telling you something isn't quite right with a person, you very well may have detected a microexpression on that person's face that doesn't mesh with what he or she is saying.

Another nonverbal sign of lying is a forced smile, which generally involves only the muscles of the mouth and not the rest of the face. A sign of deception is a smile or other gesture -- such as nodding "yes" during a denial -- that contradicts what is being said. When we normally interact, both speech and body language happen naturally, without specific thought. When we lie, however, not only must we appraise the truth, construct a plausible lie and then verbalize it, we must also decide which body gestures best match the lie, or rather best represent the telling of the truth. All of this thought leads to mis-matching words and body language.

Someone who's lying may feel attacked and get in a defensive position. He or she might turn away from the questioner, cross his or her arms or even move farther away. Liars may noticeably fidget, especially during a pause in the conversation.

There are other nonverbal cues that many people think are surefire signs of lying but aren't, such as increased blinking, scratching the face or nose, or placing a hand over the mouth while speaking. These signs are only good indicators when they represent a change in the person's normal behavior (that is, the behavior immediately preceding the suspected lie). Maybe the guy who's blinking a lot has an eyelash in his eye, and the girl covering her mouth is just self-conscious; however, if the person doesn't blink often during the first three statements and blinks like crazy and scratches his or her neck while giving the fourth statement, then that statement warrants closer examination.

Someone telling a lie will also leak verbal clues that point to dishonesty. Since he or she has to invent an answer, a lie-teller will often spend more time searching for the right word in the course of telling a story. The person might take too long to provide an answer or get words mixed up. To get extra time to think, a liar won't use contractions (opting for "cannot" instead of "can't") and may also repeat questions ("Where was I last night?" or "You want to know what I was doing yesterday?").

Since they have to create an alternate reality apart from the truth, liars have difficulty knowing how much of the new story to tell and will often include unnecessary details.

How to Lie

Whether you are complimenting a friend on his unpalatable Thanksgiving dinner or telling the authorities you don't know how the drugs got in your car, all of us at some point tell lies. These lies can range from little white lies meant to lubricate social situations and relationships to hide-saving whoppers that will go down in infamy.

Here's how you do it.

Stay calm. The person you're lying to will be closely monitoring your speech and behavior. The act of lying may quicken your heartbeat or increase your blood pressure. Behave as if you have nothing to hide. Beware of your own anger at being put on the spot -- this might create microexpressions of contempt or rage.

Keep it simple. Lying takes great imagination and effort. While we're conjuring up alternate scenarios and realities, our minds fill in all the extra details that come in handy. Liars tend to tell far too many irrelevant details, and they do this to further "prove" the lie is the truth. More often than not, this extra information stands out because it has little or nothing to do with the question. Keeping the lie simple makes it easier to keep the "facts" straight. Adding extra details will only trip you up when the questioning focuses on the details, because these extra bits of information may not add up to a coherent and plausible lie.

Remain steady. It's important that you keep an evenness to your mannerisms and mood before, during and after the lie. If you're feeling nervous before your lie, keep acting nervous. If you're relaxed before someone hits you with an unexpected question, stay relaxed. It's the shift in tone and body language that will clue someone in to your fabricating ways. Once the questioning is over, don't suddenly relax or appear relieved. If you were agitated while lying, stay agitated after the lying is finished. A person standing watch in a guard tower looks for motion or a change in the environment, and so too does a person looking for a lie. Give him or her as little as possible to work with.

Make the listener like you. You're trying to tell a lie, and the listener wants to hear the truth. You must make him or her believe your lie is the truth. Think of it this way: We're less likely to suspect those we feel close to, partly because it would be too disruptive to the relationship to believe there is deception.

Also, we're offended by lies because they are signs of disrespect. So when we lie, we must give the listener no reason to doubt our worth or our perception of their worth. Think: We're both adults. We both like each other. You have a question? Here's the answer, and let's move on. Don't grovel for the listener's approval or try to be too ingratiating. That's what liars do. Don't include statements like, "Are you mad at me?" Why would the person be mad at you unless you're being deceitful? He or she wants the truth, but running a close second is the need to believe that you wouldn't lie.

Friday, 9 December 2011

Where do bullets go when guns are fired straight up into the air?

The saying "What goes up must come down" is an appropriate starting point. If you fire a gun into the air, the bullet will travel up to a mile high (depending on the angle of the shot and the power of the gun). Once it reaches its apogee, the bullet will fall. Air resistance limits its speed, but bullets are designed to be fairlyaerodynamic, so the speed is still quite lethal if the bullet happens to hit someone. In rural areas, the chance of hitting someone is remote because the number of people is low. In crowded cities, however, the probability rises dramatically, and people get killed quite often by stray bullets. Most major cities have laws in place to try to keep people from shooting guns into the air in celebration.

Thursday, 8 December 2011

10 items that went down with titanic

When the opulent passenger liner RMS Titanic was built in 1912, it was declared by Shipbuilder magazine to be "practically" unsinkable.

Unfortunately, the word practically turned out to be key. On the Titanic's maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City, it hit an iceberg and sank in just three hours. Of the 2,229 passengers and crew onboard, only 713 survived.

The ship has been a source of fascination ever since, partly because of the many stories associated with its sinking, but also because of the huge wealth that went down with the ship and remains on the ocean floor to this day. Here are some of the people and cargo that were onboard that fateful day.

10. Passenger Facilities

The sinking of the Titanic also meant the loss of some of the most opulent facilities ever seen on a cruise liner. These included the first-ever onboard heated swimming pool, a Turkish bath, first- and second-class libraries, and a veranda cafe with real palm trees. For communication, the ship had a Marconi wireless radio station to send and receive telegrams and a 50-phone switchboard complete with operator. The Titanic even had its own state-of-the-art infirmary and operating room staffed by two physicians. All of this was lost when the ship sank.

9. Freight

One important function of the Titanic was to carry transatlantic mail. When the ship sank, there were 3,364 bags of mail and between 700 and 800 parcels onboard, contents unknown. Other cargo claimed as lost included 50 cases of toothpaste, a cask of china headed for Tiffany's, five grand pianos, and 30 cases of golf clubs and tennis rackets for A.G. Spalding. However, contrary to popular myth, the Titanic was not carrying an ancient Egyptian mummy that was believed to have cursed the ship.

8. Art

Perhaps unsurprisingly, considering the wealth of many of its passengers, the Titanic was carrying a number of works of art, all of which were lost when the ship sank. The most spectacular of these was a jeweled copy of The Rubaiyat, a collection of about 1,000 poems by the 11th-century Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam. The binding of this incredibly luxurious book contained 1,500 precious stones, each set in gold. It had been sold at auction in March 1912 to an American bidder for £405 or around $1,900 -- 15 years worth of wages for a junior crew member on the Titanic.

7. Linen

The restaurants, cafes, kitchens and bedrooms of the Titanic required so much linen that White Star Line built a large laundry close to the docks at Southampton. Each time the ship docked, the dirty linen could quickly be unloaded and cleaned for the next voyage. The 200,000 individual items (not including items belonging to passengers) included 18,000 bed sheets, 6,000 tablecloths, 36,000 towels and 45,000 table napkins.

6. Tableware

Serving all that food and drink required 57,600 items of crockery, 29,000 pieces of glassware and 44,000 pieces of cutlery. The cutlery alone would have weighed more than 4,000 pounds -- about the weight of four cows

5. Drink

Passengers needed something to wash down all their food, so the Titanic carried 15,000 bottles of ale and stout, 1,000 bottles of wine, and 850 bottles of spirits, plus 1,200 bottles of soft drinks and mixers, such as lemonade, tonic water and orange juice.

4. Food

With all those people onboard, it's not surprising that the ship contained incredible quantities of food. There were 75,000 pounds of fresh meat, as well as 15,000 pounds of fish, 25,000 pounds of poultry and 2,500 pounds of sausages (around 40,000 sausages). Among other items, the ship carried 40 tons of potatoes and 1,750 pounds of ice cream -- that's the weight of a full-grown elephant.

Wednesday, 7 December 2011

10 Cool Things You Didn't Know About Stephen Hawking

Even if you don't follow the developing theories in physics, you have probably heard of the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking. Most known as a brilliant mind in a paralyzed body, he's prided himself on making his complex physical concepts accessible to the public and writing the bestseller, "A Brief History of Time."

And if you are a fan of Conan O'Brien, "The Simpsons" or "Star Trek," you might have seen him brandishing his cool wit during guest appearances on those shows.

Even if you are familiar with his academic work, however, there are many interesting facts you might not know about Hawking, stretching from his time at school and gradual development of disability to his opinions on the future of the human race.

Many find it surprising, for instance, that, despite his influential body of work, Hawking hasn't yet been awarded the Nobel Prize. We'll talk about some of the remarkable distinctions he has received, however.

Another interesting fact: Hawking was born Jan. 8, 1942, which just happened to be the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death.

But this has just been the warm-up. Next, we'll delve into some fascinating and unexpected facts about Hawking, including some things about his profoundly inspirational story.

10. Received Mediocre Grades in School

These days, we know Hawking as a brilliant mind whose theories are difficult for a non-scientific mind to grasp. This is why it may come as a shock to learn that Hawking was a slacker when it came to his school studies.

In fact, when he was 9 years old, his grades ranked among the worst in his class [source: Larsen]. With a little more effort, he brought those grades up to about average, but not much better.

Nevertheless, from an early age he was interested in how stuff worked. He has talked about how he was known to disassemble clocks and radios. However, he admits he wasn't very good at putting them back together so they could work again.

Despite his poor grades, both his teachers and his peers seemed to understand that they had a future genius among them, evidenced by the fact that his nickname was "Einstein."

The problem with his mediocre grades was that his father wanted to send him to Oxford, but didn't have themoney without a scholarship. Luckily, when it came time for the scholarship exams, he aced them, getting an almost perfect score on the physics exam.

9. Had an Aversion to Biology

Stephen Hawking took a liking to mathematics from an early age, and he would have liked to have majored in it. His father, Frank, however, had different ideas. He hoped Stephen would instead study medicine.

But, for all his interest in science, Stephen didn't care for biology. He has said that he found it to be "too inexact, too descriptive" [source: Larsen]. He would have rather devoted his mind to more precise, well-defined concepts.

One problem, however, was that Oxford didn't have mathematics as a major. The compromise was that Stephen would attend Oxford and major in physics.

In fact, even within physics, he focused on the bigger questions. When faced with deciding between the two tracks of particle physics, which studies the behavior of subatomic particles, versus cosmology, which studies the large universe as a whole, he chose the latter. He chose cosmology despite the fact that, at that time, he says, it was "hardly recognised as a legitimate field" [source: Hawking].

In explaining why, he said that particle physics "seemed like botany. There were all these particles, but no theory" [source: Larsen].

8. Was on Oxford Rowing Team

Biographer Kristine Larsen writes about how Hawking faced isolation and unhappiness during his first year or so at Oxford. The thing that seems to have drawn him out of this funk was joining the rowing team.

Even before being diagnosed with the illness that would eventually render him almost completely paralyzed, Hawking didn't have what one would call a large or athletic build. However, row teams recruited smaller men like Hawking to be coxswains -- a position that does not row, but rather controls steering and stroke rate.

Because rowing was so important and competitive at Oxford, Hawking's role on the team made him very popular. Remembering Hawking from those days, one fellow boatsman called him "the adventurous type" [source: Larsen].

But as much as the rowing team helped his popularity, it hurt his study habits. Occupied with rowing practice for six afternoons per week, Hawking started "to cut serious corners" and used "creative analysis to create lab reports" [source: Larsen].

7. Was Given a Few Years to Live at Age 21

As a graduate student, Hawking gradually started showing symptoms of tripping and general clumsiness. His family became concerned when he was home during his Christmas break from school and they insisted he see a doctor.

Before seeing a specialist, however, he attended a New Year's Party where he met his future wife, Jane Wilde. She remembers being attracted to his "his sense of humor and his independent personality."

He turned 21 a week later, and shortly after he entered the hospital for two weeks of tests to discover what was wrong with him. He was then diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which is a neurological disease that causes patients to lose control of their voluntary muscles. He was told he'd probably only have a few years to live.

Hawking remembers being shocked and wondering why this happened to him. However, seeing a boy dying of leukemia in the hospital made him realize that there were others worse off than him.

Hawking became more optimistic and started dating Jane. They were soon engaged, and he cites their engagement as giving him "something to live for" [source: Larsen].

6. Helped Create the Boundless Universe Theory

One of Hawking's major achievements (which he shares with Jim Hartle) was to come up with the theory that the universe has no boundaries in 1983.

In 1983, the effort to understand the nature and shape of the universe, Hawking and Hartle combined the concepts of quantum mechanics (the study of the behavior of microscopic particles) with general relativity (Einstein's theories about gravity and how mass curves space) to show that the universe is a contained entity and yet has no boundaries.

To conceptualize this, he tells people to think of the universe like the surface of the earth. As a sphere, you can go in any direction on the surface of the earth and never reach a corner, an edge or any boundary where the earth can be said to "end." However, one major difference is that the surface of the earth is 2-dimensional (even though the earth itself is 3-dimensional, the surface is only 2-dimensional), while the universe is 4-dimensional.

Hawking explains that spacetime (see the sidebar on this page) is like the lines of latitude on the globe. Starting at the North Pole (the beginning of the universe) and going south, the circumferences get bigger until beyond the equator, when they would get smaller. This means that the universe is finite in spacetime and will re-collapse eventually -- however, not for at least 20 billion years [source: Hawking]. Does this mean that time itself would go backwards? Hawking grappled with this question, but decided no, because there is no reason to believe that the universe's trend from ordered energy into disordered energy will reverse

5. Lost a Bet on Black Holes

In 2004, the genius Hawking admitted he had been wrong and conceded a bet he made in 1997 with a fellow scientist about black holes. To understand the bet, let's back-pedal a little to understand what black holes are in the first place.

Stars are gigantic -- they have so much mass that their gravity is always incredibly strong. This is fine, as long as the star continues to burn its nuclear fuel, exerting this energy outward, thus counteracting gravity. However, once a star "dies" or burns out, gravity becomes the stronger force, and causes a star to collapse on itself. This creates what scientists call a black hole.

The gravity is so powerful in this collapse that not even light can escape. However, Hawking proposed in 1975 that black holes are not really black. Rather, they radiate energy.

But, he said at the time, information is lost in the black hole that eventually evaporates. The problem was that this idea that information is lost conflicted with the rules of quantum mechanics, creating what Hawking called an "information paradox."

American theoretical physicist John Preskill disagreed with this conclusion that information is lost in black hole. In 1997, he made a bet with Hawking saying that information can escape from them, thus not breaking the laws of quantum mechanics.

Hawking is such a good sport that he can admit when he's wrong -- which he did in 2004. While giving a lecture at a scientific conference, he said that because black holes have more than one "topology," and when one measures all the information released from all topologies, information isn't lost

4. Has Numerous Awards and Distinctions

In his long career in physics, Hawking has racked up an incredibly impressive array of awards and distinctions. We don't hope to be exhaustive in this small space, but we'll go over some of the highlights.

In 1974, he was inducted into the Royal Society (the royal academy of science in the U.K., dating back to 1660), and a year later, Pope Paul VI awarded him and Roger Penrose the Pius XI Gold Medal for Science. He also went on to receive the Albert Einstein Award and Hughes Medal from the Royal Society.

Hawking had so well established himself in the academic world by 1979 that he attained the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in England -- a position he would keep for the next 30 years. The chair dates all the way back to 1663, and the second person to hold it was none other than Sir Isaac Newton.

In the 1980s, he was invested as a Commander of the British Empire, which is a rank in the U.K. just under being knighted. He also became a Companion of Honour, which is another distinction given in recognition of national service. There can no more than 65 members of the order at one time.

In 2009, Hawking was awarded the United States' highest civilian honor of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

All the while, Hawking attained at least 12 honorary degrees. However, the Nobel Prize continues to elude him.

3. Is a Children's Book Author

One of the most unexpected facets of Stephen Hawking's resume is that of being a children's book author. In 2007, Stephen and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, collaborated to write "George's Secret Key to the Universe."

The book is a fiction story about a young boy, George, who rebels against his parents' aversion to technology. He begins to befriend neighbors, one of whom is a physicist with acomputer. This turns out to be most powerful computer in the world, which offers portals to see and enter into outer space.

Of course, much of the book is meant to explain heavy scientific concepts, such as black holes and the origin of life, to children. In this context, it is very fitting that Hawking, who has always sought to make his work more accessible, would want to write such a book.

The book was written to be the first of a trilogy that would continue George's adventures. The next one in the series came out in 2009 and is called "George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt."

2. Believes in Possibility of Aliens

Considering all of Hawking's work in cosmology, people are understandably interested in his opinions on the possibility of alien life. During NASA's 50th anniversary celebration in 2008, Hawking was invited to speak, and he mentioned his thoughts on the subject.

He expressed that, given the vastness of the universe, there very well could be primitive alien life out there, and it is possible, other intelligent life.

"Primitive life is very common," Hawking said, "and intelligent life is very rare." Of course, he threw in his characteristically sharp humor to say, "Some would say it has yet to occur onEarth" [source: Hawking]. He went on the say that humans should be wary of exposure to aliens because alien life will probably not be DNA-based, and we would not have resistance to diseases.

Hawking also did an episode on the possibility of aliens for "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking" on the Discovery Channel (the parent company of HowStuffWorks.com).

In this episode, he explains that aliens might use up their own planet's resources and "become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach." Or, they could set up a mirror system to focus all the energy of the sun in one area, creating a wormhole -- a hole to travel through spacetime.

1. Took Zero-Gravity Flight to Save the Human Race

In 2007, when Stephen Hawking was 65 years old, he got to take the ride of a lifetime. He was able to experience zero-gravity and float out of his wheelchair thanks to Zero Gravity Corp. The service involves an airplane ride in which sharp ascent and descent allows passengers to experience weightlessness in flight for several rounds, each about 25-seconds long.

Hawking, free from his wheelchair for the first time in four decades, was even able to perform gymnastic flips. Hawking also has booked a seat with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to ride on a sub-orbital flight.

But perhaps most interesting about this is not what he was able to do, but why he did it. When asked about why he wanted to do this, he of course cited his desire to go into space. But his reasons for going and his overall support for space travel went deeper than that.

Due to the possibility of global warming or nuclear war, Hawking has said that the future of the human race, if it is going to have a long one, will be in outer space [source: Boyle]. He supports private space exploration in hopes that space tourism will become affordable for the public. He hopes that we can travel to other planets to use their resources to survive [source: Daily Mail].