Obituary Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking - who died aged 76 - battled motor neurone disease to become one of the most respected and best-known scientists of his age.
A man
of great humour, he became a popular ambassador for science and was always
careful to ensure that the general public had ready access to his work.
His
book A Brief History of Time became an unlikely best-seller although it is
unclear how many people actually managed to get to the end of it.
He
appeared in a number of popular TV shows and lent his synthesised voice to
various recordings.
Stephen
William Hawking was born in Oxford on 8 January 1942. His father, a research
biologist, had moved with his mother from London to escape German bombing.
Hawking
grew up in London and St Albans and, after gaining a first-class degree in
physics from Oxford, went on to Cambridge for postgraduate research in
cosmology.
As a
teenager he had enjoyed horse-riding and rowing but while at Cambridge he was
diagnosed with a form of motor neurone disease which was to leave him almost
completely paralysed.
As he
was preparing to marry his first wife, Jane, in 1964 his doctors gave him no more
than two or three years of life.
But
the disease progressed more slowly than expected. The couple had three
children, and in 1988 - although Hawking was by now only able to speak with a
voice synthesiser following a tracheotomy - he had completed A Brief History of
Time - a layman's guide to cosmology.
It
sold more than 10 million copies, although its author was aware that it was
dubbed "the most popular book never read".
He
received honorary degrees, medals, prizes and awards throughout his career and
was honoured with a CBE in 1982. He was reportedly offered a knighthood in the
1990s but later revealed he had turned it down over issues with the
government's funding for science.
Celebrity
Hawking
discovered the phenomenon which became known as Hawking radiation, where black
holes leak energy and fade to nothing. He was renowned for his extraordinary
capacity to visualise scientific solutions without calculation or experiment.
But
it was perhaps his "theory of everything", suggesting that the
universe evolves according to well-defined laws, that attracted most attention.
"This
complete set of laws can give us the answers to questions like how did the
universe begin," he said. "Where is it going and will it have an end?
If so, how will it end? If we find the answers to these questions, we really
shall know the mind of God."
Hawking's
celebrity status was acknowledged even by The Simpsons - he was depicted
drinking at a bar with Homer, suggesting he might steal Homer's idea that the
universe is shaped like a doughnut.
He
appeared in a special documentary about BBC comedy series Red Dwarf during
which he spoke about why he enjoyed the show and also starred in Star Trek: The
Next Generation as a hologram of his image.
The
rock group Pink Floyd used his distinctive synthesised voice for the
introduction to Keep Talking, on their 1994 album The Division Bell.
Undeterred
by his condition, he continued his work as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
Cambridge University, and in 2001, his second book - Universe in a Nutshell -
was published.
Erratic
He
believed his illness brought some benefits; he said before he developed the
disease he had been bored with life.
But
his condition inevitably made him dependent on others. He often paid tribute to
his wife, who had looked after him for more than 20 years, and friends and
relatives were shocked when he left her for one of his nurses, Elaine Mason,
whom he married in 1995. The couple later divorced in 2006.
By
2000, Hawking was a frequent visitor to the emergency department of
Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, seeking treatment for a variety of
injuries. Police questioned several people about allegations that he had been
subjected to verbal and physical abuse over a period of years.
He
was known to be an erratic, almost reckless driver of his electric wheelchair,
and Hawking insisted his injuries were not caused by abuse. No action was
taken.
In
2007, he became the first quadriplegic to experience weightlessness on board
the so-called "vomit comet", a modified plane specially designed to
simulate zero gravity. He said he did it to encourage interest in space travel
and booked a seat on Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic sub-orbital space
plane.
"I
believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by
a disaster such as sudden 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."
In
2014, the film The Theory of Everything was released, based on Jane Hawking's
account of their courtship and marriage. Hawking himself met Eddie Redmayne as
part of the actor's preparation for taking on the role of the scientist.
In a
series for the Discovery Channel, he said it was perfectly rational to assume
there was intelligent life elsewhere but warned that aliens might just raid
earth of its resources and then move on.
Hawking
also predicted the end of humanity from global warming, a large comet or a new
virus.
He
collaborated with Russian investor Yuri Milner in 2015 to work on projects to
find evidence of alien life.
He
once wrote that he had motor neurone disease for practically all his adult life
but said that it had not stopped him having an attractive family and being
successful in his work.
"It
shows," he said, "that one need not lose hope."
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