Hawking for everyone: commemorating half a century of an unfinished scientific revolution

Abstract

This year marks half a century since Stephen Hawking made his greatest scientific discovery by theoretically proving that 'black holes ain't so black', as they behave like hot bodies with an absolute temperature that depends inversely on their mass. This discovery is expressed by a simple and elegant equation known as the Hawking temperature. The best way to commemorate this great scientific event is by bringing it to a wide audience. The simplest and most transparent and intuitive tool to achieve this goal is dimensional analysis. The objective of this work is to use this tool to derive the Hawking equation, reveal its meaning, and explore its main physical consequences.