I am committing this moment to memory.
It indeed feels bad to be struck by the news — I was just in a conversation about hawking radiations this afternoon — I suppose that before the moment of death detaches myself from my senses and mind, I’d remain in such a powerless position: a witness of the passage of time, or the endlessly complex changing world.
To my rescue, amid readings and Mathematica, at the very instant the news reached my eyes from across the Internet, I was with my friend. To my great relief, I found myself a place for the first time — although transient — in the physics enterprise of our species.
I set off to follow your footsteps. I set off to aid and learn from others. Hopefully, I can document and digest as much as I humanly can. Hopefully I will climb up to witness the calm inside storms. Hopefully, I can do something sensible with my ability and efforts. Hopefully I will take the lead in finding us the better way. Hopefully, no matter how I will be remembered, I make something happen.
You live on in my mind, Stephen Hawking.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
March, 2018
Berkeley