Radio Astronomy’s Diego Casanova explains what Stephen Hawking’s last paper said and why it’s so important. Stephen Hawking passed away this spring. Before passing away, Hawking was in the process of writing a paper on the inflation period and what it did and didn’t do to the universe. The inflation period is said to create mini universes, that are created at the speed of light, but Stephen Hawking disagrees with that in his paper. The paper is titled “A Smooth Exit From External Inflation”