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Stephen Hawking

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Stephen Hawking is a famous physicist, known for his groundbreaking work on black holes and the origin of the universe, and for his best-selling book A Brief History of Time which made his research accessible to a mass audience. However, Hawking is particularly renowned for achieving all this despite suffering for most of his career from motor neuron (Lou Gehrig's) disease. Despite progressive paralysis which has left Hawking able to communicate only by moving his cheek muscle, he still holds the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University and continues actively to research, teach and lecture.

Stephen William Hawking was born on January 8, 1942 to Frank and Isobel Hawking. His father was a research biologist. Though the family home was in London, Hawking was born in Oxford. Being World War II, the family moved there for safety due to the bombing of London.

The family later moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire and Hawking was educated at St Albans High School for Girls (which apparently took boy students) and later St Albans School. After school Hawking studied physics at University College Oxford.

His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said in the New York Times Magazine, “It was only necessary for him to know that something could be done, and he could do it without looking to see how other people did it. ... He didn’t have very many books, and he didn’t take notes. Of course, his mind was completely different from all of his contemporaries.” He was passing with his fellow students, but his unimpressive study habits gave him a final examination score on the borderline between first and second class honours, making an “oral examination” necessary. Berman said of the oral examination, “And of course the examiners then were intelligent enough to realize they were talking to someone far more clever than most of themselves.” [Current Biography, 1984. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co.]

After receiving his B.A. degree at Oxford University in 1962, he stayed to study astronomy. He decided to leave when he found that studying sunspots, which was all the observatory was equipped for, did not appeal to him and that he was more interested in theory than in observation. He left Oxford for Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he engaged in the study of theoretical astronomy and cosmology. [Current Biography, 1984. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co.]

Almost as soon as he arrived at Cambridge, he started developing symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (colloquially known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), a type of motor neuron disease which would cost him the loss of almost all neuromuscular control. During his first two years at Cambridge, he did not distinguish himself, but, after the disease had stabilized and with the help of his doctoral tutor, Dennis William Sciama, he returned to working on his Ph.D. Stephen revealed that he did not see much point in obtaining a doctorate if he was to die soon. Hawking later said that the real turning point was his 1965 marriage to Jane Wilde, a language student. After gaining his Ph.D. Stephen became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. [Current Biography, 1984. New York: The H. W. Wilson Co.]

Hawking was elected as one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society in 1974, was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1982, and became a Companion of Honour in 1989. Dr. Hawking is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

In 1985, while on a visit to CERN, Switzerland, Hawking contracted severe pneumonia. In order to assist his breathing he was given a tracheotomy which resulted in the loss of his voice. After this he began using the distinctive computerized voice synthesizer which he is now identified with.

At the celebration of his 65th birthday on January 8, 2007, Hawking announced his plans for a zero-gravity flight in 2007 to prepare for a sub-orbital spaceflight in 2009 on Virgin Galactic’s space service. Billionaire Richard Branson pledged to pay all expenses for the flight, costing an estimated £100,000. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/08/nhawking08.xml]

Stephen Hawking’s zero-gravity flight of Zero Gravity Corporation, during which he experienced weightlessness eight times, took place on April 26, 2007.[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6594821.stm] Hawking was quoted before the flight saying "Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight. I am doing it for many reasons. First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."
[http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0704/26hawking/]

A truly inspirational figure, on a recent Channel 4 TV documentary Hawking said he was unlucky to get motor neuron disease, but has been lucky in everything else.

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