New Delhi: British physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking's PhD thesis was accessed more than two million times from every nook and corner of the globe, says a report.


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Just a few days after it was made available to public, it was viewed more than 2 million times.


Hawking's 1966 work proved so popular on the day of its release that it crashed the publications section of Cambridge University's website.

More than 500,000 people have also tried to download the paper, titled "Properties of expanding universes".

Hawking, 75, wrote the 134-page document as a 24-year-old postgraduate student while studying at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

The astrophysicist, who has been at Cambridge University since 1962, would later go on to write "A Brief History of Time", one of the most influential scientific works ever.


Since May 2016, 199 requests were made for the PhD, most of which are believed to be from the general public rather than academics, reports the BBC.


Previously, to read Hawking's PhD in full, people had to pay 65 pounds to the university library to scan a copy or physically go to the library to read it.