Why didn’t Stephen Hawking win a Nobel Prize?

Although Stephen Hawking is considered a 21st century legend in the world of science and cosmology, following Einstein, he has never won a Nobel Prize.

During his appearance last week with John Oliver, Oliver asked him, “you’ve stated that there could be an infinite number of parallel universes does that mean that there is a universe out there I am smarter than you?”

Hawking replied, “yes, and also a universe where you’re funny.” His genius, as well as his wit, was incomparable, and his illness, which bound him to a wheelchair since 1964 when he was 22-years-old, did not stop him from striving for greatness.

Although Hawking received several honorary awards, the Nobel prize was not one of them.

According to the Telegraph, his discovery of black holes in 1974 could have won the award, as it was a great discovery that was widely accepted in the scientific community. In January 2016, he gave a Reith Lecture broadcast on the BBC in which he joked that his lack of a Nobel Prize was "a pity".

However, according to supporters of the Nobel Prize institution, theoretical scientific discoveries have to be confirmed by observational data in order for the founder to receive the award. And black holes are somewhat difficult to observe.

But some argue that Einstein’s scientific theory of gravitational waves in space, which he presented in the 1920s, was only recently proved in 2016, and he had won a Nobel Prize before then.

Although he did not get the prestigious award, Hawking is undoubtedly a legend in the science world, and his influence will carry on for generations.