'The Vedas have a theory superior to E = mc²'
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In March 2018 a Union minister said Stephen Hawking had stated that the Vedas may have a theory superior to Einstein's E = mc². Fact-checkers found no record of Hawking saying this.
Indian claim not supported by evidencePhysics & chemistry
Indian claim
Stephen Hawking said the Vedas might contain a theory superior to Einstein's E = mc².
Evidence for the Indian claim
- The then Union Minister for Science and Technology, Harsh Vardhan, said this at the 105th Indian Science Congress in Imphal on 16 March 2018.
Commonly credited to
E = mc² comes from Einstein's 1905 work on special relativity, and Hawking never made such a statement.
Evidence for the other claim
- The fact-checking site Alt News found no record of Hawking making the statement and traced it to unverified posts circulating online.
- Nothing on Hawking's own website or in his writings refers to the Vedas in this way.
- No Vedic text contains the mass–energy equation or an equivalent physical law.
What historians and scientists say
The Hawking quotation is not genuine and no such theory exists in the Vedas. Respect for the Vedas does not require attributing modern physics to them.