British physicist Stephen Hawking is all smiles after his flight at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral
British physicist Stephen Hawking is all smiles after his flight at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida April 26, 2007. Hawking took a flight on Thursday that gave the renowned scientist, who is confined to a wheelchair, a taste of the weightlessness of space. Reuters/Charles W Luzier

Iconic physicist Stephen Hawking’s final scientific paper sets out the maths for a space probe to find experimental proof of the "multiverse" theory, the idea that the cosmos is just one of many universes. A co-author said Hawking had completed the research on his deathbed, which he submitted two weeks before he passed away in his home at 76.

Hawking was a co-author of a mathematical paper exploring how universes could be found with a probe on a spaceship. It also predicts how the universe would fade into blackness.

In the “no boundary theory,” he and American physicist James Hartle described how the Earth hurtled into existence during the Big Bang. It also predicts a multiverse, which means the phenomenon was accompanied by several other “Big Bangs” that created separate universes.

The paper titled "A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation" had its most recent revisions approved on March 4. The Sunday Times newspaper reports that the paper will be published by an unnamed "leading journal" following the completion of a review.

The newspaper also reports that the paper’s contents set out the mathematics needed for a deep-space probe to gather evidence proving that other universes exist. Such evidence might have put Hawking in line for the Nobel Prize if it had been found while he was still alive. Nobel Prizes cannot be awarded posthumously.

Physics professor Thomas Hertog, who co-authored the paper with Hawking, said the work seeks "to transform the idea of a multiverse into a testable scientific framework.” He told the Sunday Times that he met with Hawking to obtain final approval before submitting the paper.

The ideas presented in the study have drawn mixed reactions. Canada’s Perimeter Institute director Neil Turok, one of Hawking’s friends, said he remains puzzled as to why he found the idea interesting. Others believe Hawking’s work might embody the breakthrough that cosmology needs as it is the first such theory that could be tested via experiments.

Hawking never received a Nobel Prize since his ideas are yet to be proven. His fellow scientists and many people around the world recognise that he had one of the most brilliant minds in science, but his musings regarding cosmology and black holes have yet to get the lockdown evidence that accompanies the physics prize. He has often been compared to Nobel laureate Albert Einstein. Hawking passed away on the 139th anniversary of Einstein’s birth.