Stephen Hawking.(8.1.42 to 15.3.2018)

by Zita Subasinghe Perera

Picture taken by Hubble telescope shows the furthest galaxies ever photographed.

Every speck is a galaxy and some of them billions of years old.

Stephen Hawking the most respected British scientist of modern times died on the 15^th of March 2018 at the age of 76. He was confined to a wheel chair for most of his adult life. He spoke through a computerised voice system in an American accent. His name that has been heard in relation to cosmology and Theoretical Physics.He was the Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Both his parents were graduates from Oxford even though they did not come from ‘elite’ families. Their son Stephen was born 300 years to the day Galileo was born. They obviously believed in good education and their son Stephen was a graduate of the University College, Oxford. He was not a highly keen student and spent a lot of time in the College boat club. But he got a first class there and went to Cambridge. But even there he did not find enough to satisfy his interest in Cosmology and fell into a depression. he obtained his PHD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology, in March 1966. He met Jane Wilde during his time at Cambridge and a few months later he was diagnosed as suffering from Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and given 2 years before he would become completely disabled. He refused to be discouraged. At this stage Jane’s presence was crucial to his determination to overcome all obstacles and he obtained his PhD in Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics.

He was inspired by Roger Penrose’s theories of singularity and black holes. Simply stated, a black hole is the ‘empty space’ (to us!) left after the death of a star. But Penrose and Hawkins believed otherwise. Hawkins in fact postulated a radiation from the centre of a black hole and it is called Hawking’s radiation. During his undergraduate years in the early ‘60s and later his graduate years he cooperated with fellow scientists in the description of many cosmic phenomena. He received many prizes and awards. His first book was The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, written in collaboration with fellow scientist George Ellis in 1971.

His personal relationships:

Jane Wild was his first girlfriend while at college. As his condition deteriorated he was helped by the support of Jane who he married later. they travelled to the United States several times for conferences and physics-related visits. They had three children, a daughter and two sons, born between 1967 and 1979. The challenges to Jane who had her own career, were tremendous and the relationship between her and Stephen broke down. During his troubled period Stephen had grown close to one of his nurses Elaine Masan and after his divorce in 1995 he married Elaine. But there were many strains on this relationship and it came to an end in 2006. Thereafter Stephen resumed a closer relationship with his first wife Jane and his three children.

He wrote the book ‘A brief History of Time’ in 1988. It was a science-based book bought by more people in history than any other publication known. But many say that they did not read the book to completion. His first wife Jane and daughter Lucy are writers too. Jane’s book ‘Travelling to Infinity- my life with Stephen’ appeared in 2007 and was made into the film ‘The theory of Everything’ in 2012.

What was Stephen’s disability?

It was a slow progressing form of motor neurone disease called Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). It gradually paralysed him over his life time. The diagnosis was given in 1961 with a life expectancy of two years but Stephen defied all medical opinions and lived with his disability in a motorised wheel chair with a speaking device and motor control finally carried out by batting of his eye lids which were the only movable parts in his body in the end. But he conducted his scientific life of discovery of the cosmos and unique original phenomena which a man or woman with all motor and sensory faculties would have found impossible. He nearly died a few times. In 1985 after a visit to CERN, at the edge of France and Switzerland, Stephen contracted pneumonia and was on life support. Wife Jane demanded the support to be continued even when she was advised that it is better to withdraw support. in 1986 he received a computer program called the "Equalizer" from the organisation called Words Plus. Stephen claimed that with the use of a computer now he had more words at access than before he lost his voice. Gradually the motorisation was fine tuned to let him use his eye lids and chin movements. Towards the end of his life he had increased difficulty in breathing and succumbed to pneumonia often.

Plans for a trip to space

On 26 April 2007, Hawking flew aboard a specially-modified Boeing 727 jet operated by a zero gravity company off the coast of Florida to experience weightlessness. 

Hawking died at his home in Cambridge, England, early in the morning of 14 March 2018, at the age of 76. His family stated that he died peacefully.

Future of Humanity:

In 2006 Hawking posed an open question on the Internet: "In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?", later clarifying: "I don't know the answer. That is why I asked the question, to get people to think about it, and to be aware of the dangers we now face."

Hawking expressed concern that life on Earth is at risk from a sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, global warming, or other dangers humans have not yet thought of. Such a planet-wide disaster need not result in human extinction if the human race were to be able to colonise additional planets before the disaster, thought Hawking.