--- title: Stephen Hawking Thesis Crashes Cambridge University Website description: Stephen Hawking wrote his Ph.D. thesis all the way back in 1966. But it's still generating buzz more than half-a-century later. canonical: https://time.com/4993957/stephen-hawking-thesis-cambridge/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-23T19:06:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T02:20:19.000Z article:section: Science og:title: Stephen Hawking's Thesis Is So Popular It Crashed Cambridge's Website og:description: More than 60,000 people read it right away og:url: https://time.com/4993957/stephen-hawking-thesis-cambridge/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt818da80d5fa097cb/69888ed4e20a870800a90612/stephen-hawking-life-space.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: EE British Academy Film Awards 2015 - Red Carpet Arrivals og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Stephen Hawking's Thesis Is So Popular It Crashed Cambridge's Website twitter:description: More than 60,000 people read it right away twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt818da80d5fa097cb/69888ed4e20a870800a90612/stephen-hawking-life-space.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Stephen Hawking's Thesis Is So Popular It Crashed Cambridge's Website  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Updated: Dec 13, 2023 2:20 AM UTCPublished: Oct 23, 2017 7:06 PM UTC  Stephen Hawking attends the EE British Academy Film Awards at The Royal Opera House on February 8, 2015 in London, England. Stephen Hawking attends the EE British Academy Film Awards at The Royal Opera House on February 8, 2015 in London, England.John Phillips—Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Updated: Dec 13, 2023 2:20 AM UTCPublished: Oct 23, 2017 7:06 PM UTC [Stephen Hawking](http://time.com/4045560/stephen-hawking-quotes/) wrote his Ph.D. thesis all the way back in 1966\. But it’s still generating buzz more than half-a-century later. The physicist’s thesis about expanding universes, which he wrote at Cambridge University as a 24-year-old postgraduate student, was made freely available online for the first time ever Monday morning, and immediately incited a frenzy. More than 60,000 people have already read it, [the BBC reports](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-41721585), enough to periodically crash the university’s website. The work was previously available through Cambridge’s library, but readers had to visit the facility in person or pay about $85 for a scanned copy. “Anyone, anywhere in the world should have free, unhindered access to not just my research, but to the research of every great and enquiring mind across the spectrum of human understanding,” [Hawking said in a statment on Cambridge’s website.](http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/step-inside-the-mind-of-the-young-stephen-hawking-as-his-phd-thesis-goes-online-for-first-time) Hawking, who is now 75 and has lived with ALS for more than 50 years, gained some new fans in 2014, with the release of _The_ _Theory of Everything_, a critically acclaimed film based on the scientist’s life. 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