What was the title of Stephen Hawking's first BBC Reith Lecture in 2016?
Answer
Do Black Holes Have No Hair?
Answer
Do Black Holes Have No Hair?
Stephen Hawking’s first BBC Reith Lecture was titled ‘Do Black Holes Have No Hair?’ The lecture opened his short series on black holes and explored one of the most famous ideas in black-hole physics: the no-hair theorem.
The phrase ‘no hair’ means that, from the outside, a settled black hole is expected to be described by only a few properties, chiefly its mass, electric charge, and rotation. It should not retain visible details about the matter that formed it. Hawking used the lecture to discuss why that apparently simple picture creates deep problems for quantum physics and information.
The date in this question is easy to confuse. The BBC series is officially identified as the 2015 Reith Lectures, although the lectures were recorded and broadcast around the 2015–2016 period. The second lecture was called ‘Black Holes Ain’t as Black as They Are Painted,’ so it is a frequent mix-up with the first title.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Aug. 2026