Stephen Hawking-Jacob Bekenstein debate (1972)

Stephen Hawking: the analogy between the area theorem and the second law of thermodynamics is just a matter of coincidence.

Jacob Bekenstein: I am not convinced. Nowhere in nature the second law of thermodynamics is violated. Why black holes would be an exception? I believe that the area of black holes is actually a manifestation of their entropy.

John Wheeler (Jacob Bekenstein's doctoral advisor) to Beckenstein: Your idea is just so crazy that it might actually be true.

 Stephen Hawking: If a black hole has entropy, it must have a temperature, and if it has a temperature it must radiate like a blackbody. But if nothing can escape from a black hole, how can it radiate?

1974: end of the debate and discovery of the Hawking radiation. Professor Stephen Hawking admits that Jacob Bekenstein was right: Black Holes have entropy, which is proportional to their area.