Stephen William Hawking: A living Legend

SITTING IMMOBILE, on a wheel chair, equipped with a computer, he is the cynosure  of all eyes. Audiences are simply wonderstruck by his computerized voice and spellbound by his diction and performance. Popularly called ‘living Einstein’,this scientist is Professor Stephen William Hawking.

Stephen Hawkings

Albert Einstein once noted that “What is essential in the existence of a man of my type is what he thinks and how he thinks, not what he does or suffers from.” A comment which applies to Stephen Hawking also. He has had motorneurone disease for practically all his adult life. Yet, it has not prevented him from having a family and being successful in his work.

Born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England, Stephen Hawking had his education at Oxford (his BA in 1962), and Cambridge, where he received his doctorate in theoretical physics. Since 1979, he has held the Lucasian professorship in mathematics at Cambridge, the very chair once held by Sir Isaac Newton. Here, it should not be forgotten that since the early 1960s, he has been the victim of a disease that now confines him to a wheelchair.

In 1985 he had to undergo a tracheotomy. After that he needed constant vigil and 24-hour nursing care. This was made possible by grants from several foundations. This affliction prevents Hawking from reading, writing, or calculating in a direct and simple way.

He communicates with a computer system on his wheel chair. On the computer, he runs a programme named Equalizertm, written by a company called Words Plus Inc. A cursor moves across the upper part of the screen. When he has constructed a sentence, he sends it to a speech synthesizer devised by ‘Speech+’. Of his illness, Hawking says that it has boosted his career by giving him the freedom to think about physics and the universe.

Hawking’s contributions to cosmology have been in the areas of general relativity, gravity and quantum theory, with particular application of these areas to black holes.

Hawking has received recognition for his work numerous times including the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Heinemann Prize of the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society, the Maxwell Medal and Prize, and the Einstein Medal.

Professor Hawking has 12 honorary degrees, was awarded the CBE in 1982, and was made a Companion of Honour in 1989. He is the recipient of many awards, medals and prizes and is a Fellow of The Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

His many publications include ‘The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime’, with G F R Ellis, ‘General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey’ with W Israel;\and, ‘300 years of Gravity’, with W Israel.

Hawking has two popular books to his name; his best seller ‘A Brief History of Time’, and his later book, ‘Black Holes and Baby Universes and other Essays’.  Professor Hawking has given many lectures to the general public.

Hawking continues to combine his family life, (he has three children and one grandchild), his research into theoretical physics with an extensive programme of travel and public lectures.