V 3 Technologies Web Blog

Stephen Hawking placed a $100 bet with Professor Gordy Kane, of the Michigan University, over the existence of the Higgs boson, in 2000. He also believed that the Big bang machine which went “live” today, might create a small black hole. However, he knows this is very unlikely to happen as he says ““If the LHC were to produce little black holes, I don’t think there’s any doubt I would get a Nobel prize, if they showed the properties I predict,” Professor Hawking told the Today programme. “However, I think the probability that the LHC has enough energy to create black holes is less than one per cent, so I’m not holding my breath.””

Professor Hawking’s claim to a Nobel prize rests on a different piece of theoretical physics: his 1974 proposition that black holes can emit radiation, despite their overwhelming gravitational pull. Though the idea was initially greeted with widespread scepticism, the concept of “Hawking radiation” is now generally accepted, though as with the Higgs boson, there is no direct evidence that it exists.