Cambridge website crashes after Hawking fans devour free thesis

 A Cambridge website on Tuesday crashed because so many people wanted to read an online doctoral thesis by British astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, the university said. The site went down on the first day of “Properties of Expanding Universes” being made available for free. The 134-page document was retrieved 60,000 times in just a few hours. […]

 A Cambridge website on Tuesday crashed because so many people wanted to read an online doctoral thesis by British astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, the university said.

The site went down on the first day of “Properties of Expanding Universes” being made available for free.

The 134-page document was retrieved 60,000 times in just a few hours.

“I hope to inspire people around the world to look up at stars and not down at their feet,’’ Hawking, 75, said to mark the publication, adding that he wanted unhindered access to the work.

He wrote the thesis when he was 24.

Since his book “A Brief History of the Time’’ was published in 1988, Hawking has become famous across the world.

Still working in old age, Hawking suffers from incurable motor neurone disease which has left him in a wheelchair and needing to use a computer voice to communicate. (dpa/NAN)