True Scholar | Professor Stephen Hawking's PhD viewed two million times @ on the day of its release it crashed the publications section
Prof Hawking's 1966 work proved so popular on the day of its release it crashed
the publications section of Cambridge University's website.
More than 500,000 people have also tried to
download the paper, titled "Properties of expanding universes".
Dr Arthur Smith, from the university, called
the figures "monumental".
"This is far and away the most accessed
item we have in the university's Apollo repository," Dr Smith, deputy head
of scholarly communication, said.
"I'd hazard a guess that Prof Hawking's
PhD thesis is also the most accessed item from any research repository ever.
We've never seen numbers like this before."
Factfile: Stephen Hawking
- Born 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England
- Earned place at Oxford University to read natural science in 1959, before studying for his PhD at Cambridge
- By 1963, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and given two years to live
- Outlined his theory that black holes emit "Hawking radiation" in 1974
- Published his book A Brief History of Time in 1988, which has sold more than 10 million copies
- His life story was the subject of the 2014 film The Theory of Everything, starring Eddie Redmayne
Prof Hawking wrote the 134-page document as a
24-year-old postgraduate student while studying at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
The astrophysicist, who has been at Cambridge
University since 1962, would later go on to write A Brief History of Time, one
of the most influential scientific works ever.
Since it went live at 00:01 BST on Monday, the
PhD has been accessed about two million times by about 800,000 unique browsers
"from every corner of the globe", according to the university.
The next most read PhD thesis has received
just 7,960 downloads in 2017.
Previously, to read Hawking's PhD in full,
people had to pay £65 to the university library to scan a copy or physically go
to the library to read it.
Cambridge University hopes to encourage its
other former academics to make their work available to the public, like Prof
Hawking has.
Dr Smith added: "Locking knowledge and
information behind closed doors benefits no-one."
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Knowledge
Repository
Khaitan & Co
Twitter Handle | @Pralhad161978
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