Late last week, the Science and Technology Minister of India, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, claimed that the late cosmologist Stephen Hawking once said that the Vedas might have a theory which is superior to Einstein’s theory of E=mc2. Vardhan made the claim while speaking at the 105th edition of the Indian Science Congress organized at the Manipur University. In his address Vardhan said:
“We recently lost a renowned scientist, cosmologist Stephen Hawking. He emphatically said on record that our Vedas might have a theory superior to that of Einstein’s E=mc2”.
It’s worth noting that there isn’t any record of Hawking making such a remark and now a founding trustee of the Stephen Hawking Foundation has said that he is certain that the late scientist “did not support the claims” made by the Union Minister.
It’s rather shameful how the Union Minister used the name of a recently deceased scientist to ‘saffronize’ science. On top of that, it’s also quite alarming that the man who’s been elected as the representative for the Science and Technology Ministry would make such baseless claims. When questioned about the claim, Vardhan asked the reporters at the event to “work a bit on this” and question him in Delhi ” if they failed in their research”. However, when The Telegraph attempted to approach him regarding the claims he couldn’t be contacted despite repeated attempts.
Shubha Tole, professor in the department of biological sciences at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, was quoted saying:
