Stephen Hawking facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Stephen Hawking
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Hawking in the 1980s
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Stephen William Hawking
8 January 1942 Oxford, England
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| Died | 14 March 2018 (aged 76) Cambridge, England
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| Resting place | Westminster Abbey |
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| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 3, including Lucy |
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| Thesis | Properties of Expanding Universes (1966) |
| Doctoral advisor | Dennis W. Sciama |
| Other academic advisors | Robert Berman |
| Doctoral students |
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Bruce Allen
Raphael Bousso Bernard Carr Fay Dowker Christophe Galfard Gary Gibbons Thomas Hertog Raymond Laflamme Don Page Malcolm Perry Christopher Pope Marika Taylor Alan Yuille Wu Zhongchao 27 others |
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| Universe · Big Bang Age of the universe Timeline of the Big Bang Ultimate fate of the universe
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Stephen William Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. At the time of his death, he was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between 1979 and 2009, he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world.
Contents
Early life
Family
Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford to Frank and Isobel Eileen Hawking (née Walker). Both parents attended the University of Oxford, where Frank read medicine and Isobel read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Isobel worked as a secretary for a medical research institute, and Frank was a medical researcher. Hawking had two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward Frank David (1955–2003).
In 1950, when Hawking's father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research, the family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire. In St Albans, the family was considered highly intelligent and somewhat eccentric; meals were often spent with each person silently reading a book. They lived in a large, cluttered, and poorly maintained house and travelled in a converted London taxicab.
Primary and secondary school years
Hawking began his schooling at the Byron House School in Highgate, London. In St Albans, the eight-year-old Hawking attended St Albans High School for Girls for a few months. At that time, younger boys could attend one of the houses.
Hawking attended two private (i.e. fee-paying) schools, first Radlett School and from September 1952, St Albans School, Hertfordshire, after passing the eleven-plus a year early.
The family placed a high value on education. Hawking's father wanted his son to attend Westminster School, but the 13-year-old Hawking was ill on the day of the scholarship examination. His family could not afford the school fees without a scholarship, so Hawking remained at St Albans.
With time, he began to show interest in scientific subjects and, inspired by his school math teacher, decided to read mathematics at university. Hawking's father advised him to study medicine, concerned that there were few jobs for mathematics graduates. He also wanted his son to attend University College, Oxford, his own alma mater. As it was not possible to read mathematics there at the time, Hawking decided to study physics and chemistry. Despite his headmaster's advice to wait until the next year, Hawking was awarded a scholarship after taking the examinations in March 1959.
University years
Hawking began his university education at University College, Oxford, in October 1959 at the age of 17. For the first eighteen months, he was bored and lonely – he found the academic work "ridiculously easy".
During his second and third years he developed into a popular, lively and witty college-member, interested in classical music and science fiction.
His finals became a challenge for him, and he decided to answer only theoretical physics questions. He slept poorly the night before the examinations, and the result was on the borderline between first- and second-class honours. So, when asked to describe his plans, he said, "If you award me a First, I will go to Cambridge. If I receive a Second, I shall stay in Oxford, so I expect you will give me a First." After receiving a first-class BA degree in physics and completing a trip to Iran with a friend, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in October 1962.
In March 1966, he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology.
Health problems
Hawking had experienced increasing clumsiness during his final year at Oxford. Once he fell on some stairs and had difficulties when rowing. The problems worsened, and his speech became slightly slurred. His family noticed the changes when he returned home for Christmas, and adviced him to consult a doctor.
In 1963, at age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease that gradually, over decades, paralysed him.
After being diagnosed with the disease, Hawking fell into a depression. The initial diagnosis predicted that he had only two years to live, so he felt there was little point in continuing his research. His teachers and colleagues encouraged him to return to his work. Hawking had difficulty walking unsupported, and his speech was almost unintelligible; however, he started giving public lectures and developed a reputation for brilliance and brashness.
After the loss of his speech, Hawkings communicated through a speech-generating device initially through use of a handheld switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle.
Scientific work
Hawking received a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge; he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology, in March 1966. His essay "Singularities and the Geometry of Space–Time" won that year's prestigious Adams Prize.
in collaboration with Roger Penrose, Hawking extended the singularity theorem concepts. This included not only the existence of singularities but also the theory that the universe might have started as a singularity.
In 1970, Hawking postulated what became known as the second law of black hole dynamics, that the event horizon of a black hole can never get smaller.
In 1974, Hawking showed that black holes emit radiation, known today as Hawking radiation, which may continue until they exhaust their energy and evaporate. By the late 1970s, the discovery was widely accepted as a significant breakthrough in theoretical physics. Hawking was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1974, a few weeks after the announcement of Hawking radiation. At the time, he was one of the youngest scientists to become a Fellow.
By the late 1970s, the discovery was widely accepted as a major breakthrough in theoretical physics. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Hawking achieved commercial success with several works of popular science in which he discussed his theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.
Personal life
Marriages
Hawking met his future wife, Jane Wilde, at a party in 1962. The following year, Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. In October 1964, the couple became engaged. Hawking later said that the engagement gave him "something to live for". The two were married on 14 July 1965 in their shared hometown of St Albans.
The couple resided in Cambridge. During their first years of marriage, Jane lived in London during the week as she completed her degree at Westfield College. They travelled to the United States several times for conferences and physics-related visits. Jane began a PhD programme through Westfield College in medieval Spanish poetry (completed in 1981). The couple had three children: Robert, born May 1967, Lucy, born November 1970, and Timothy, born April 1979.
Around December 1977, Jane met organist Jonathan Hellyer Jones when singing in a church choir. Hellyer Jones became close to the Hawking family, and by the mid-1980s, he and Jane had developed romantic feelings for each other.
By the 1980s, Hawking's marriage had been strained for many years. Jane felt uneasy about the constant presence of the required nurses and assistants. After a tracheotomy in 1985, Hawking required a full-time nurse and nursing care was split across 3 shifts daily. In the late 1980s, Hawking grew close to one of his nurses, Elaine Mason. In February 1990, Hawking told Jane that he was leaving her for Mason, and departed the family home. After his divorce from Jane in 1995, Hawking married Mason in September, declaring, "It's wonderful – I have married the woman I love."
In 1999, Jane Hawking published a memoir, Music to Move the Stars, describing her marriage to Hawking and its breakdown.
In 2006, Hawking and Mason quietly divorced, and Hawking resumed closer relationships with Jane, his children, and his grandchildren. Reflecting on this happier period, a revised version of Jane's book, re-titled Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, appeared in 2007, and was made into a film, The Theory of Everything, in 2014.
Disability outreach
Starting in the 1990s, Hawking became a role model for disabled people. He lectured and participated in fundraising activities. At the turn of the century, he and eleven other humanitarians signed the Charter for the Third Millennium on Disability, which called on governments to prevent disability and protect the rights of disabled people. In 1999, Hawking was awarded the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society.
In August 2012, Hawking narrated the "Enlightenment" segment of the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony in London. In 2013, the biographical documentary film Hawking, in which Hawking himself is featured, was released.
In August 2014, Hawking accepted the Ice Bucket Challenge to promote ALS/MND awareness and raise contributions for research. As he had pneumonia in 2013, he was advised not to have ice poured over him, but his children volunteered to accept the challenge on his behalf.
Death
He died in 2018 at the age of 76, after having motor neurone disease for more than 50 years. His family stated that he "died peacefully".
A tribute was made to Hawking in the closing speech by IPC President Andrew Parsons at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
His private funeral took place on 31 March 2018, at Great St Mary's Church, Cambridge. Guests at the funeral included The Theory of Everything actors Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, and model Lily Cole. In addition, actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Stephen Hawking in Hawking, astronaut Tim Peake, Astronomer Royal Martin Rees and physicist Kip Thorne provided readings at the service.
Although Hawking was an atheist, the funeral took place with a traditional Anglican service. Following the cremation, a service of thanksgiving was held at Westminster Abbey on 15 June 2018, after which his ashes were interred in the Abbey's nave, between the graves of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.
Inscribed on his memorial stone are the words "Here lies what was mortal of Stephen Hawking 1942–2018". He directed, at least fifteen years before his death, that the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy equation be his epitaph.
Personal views
Philosophy is unnecessary
At Google's Zeitgeist Conference in 2011, Stephen Hawking said that "philosophy is dead". He believed that philosophers "have not kept up with modern developments in science", "have not taken science sufficiently seriously and so Philosophy is no longer relevant to knowledge claims". His view was both praised and criticized.
Future of humanity
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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.
Hawking stated that, given the vastness of the universe, aliens likely exist, but that contact with them should be avoided. He warned that aliens might pillage Earth for resources.
Hawking warned that superintelligent artificial intelligence could be pivotal in humanity's fate, stating that "success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. It might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks." He was fearing that "an extremely intelligent future AI will probably develop a drive to survive and acquire more resources as a step toward accomplishing whatever goal it has".
Hawking was concerned about the future emergence of a race of "superhumans" that would be able to design their own evolution. He also argued that computer viruses in today's world should be considered a new form of life.
Interesting facts about Stephen Hawking
- As a boy, Hawking enjoyed board games, the manufacture of fireworks, model aeroplanes and boats, and long discussions about Christianity.
- Although known at school as "Einstein", Hawking was not initially successful academically.
- Hawking was a member of the college boat-club, the University College Boat Club, where he coxed a rowing-crew.
- Hawking was viewed as a lazy and difficult student.
- He estimated that he studied about 1,000 hours during his three years at Oxford.
- Hawking's first book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, written with George Ellis, was published in 1973.
- Hawking was an atheist and a longstanding Labour Party supporter.
- He started using a voice synthesizer when he lost the ability to speak.
- Hawking was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.
- In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.
Appearances in popular media
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In 1988, Hawking, Arthur C. Clarke and Carl Sagan were interviewed in God, the Universe and Everything Else. They discussed the Big Bang theory, God and the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
Hawking played a holographic simulation of himself in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1993. The same year, his synthesiser voice was recorded for the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking", and in 1999 for an appearance on The Simpsons.
Hawking appeared in documentaries titled The Real Stephen Hawking (2001), Stephen Hawking: Profile (2002) and Hawking (2013), and the documentary series Stephen Hawking, Master of the Universe (2008). Hawking also guest-starred in Futurama and had a recurring role in The Big Bang Theory.
Hawking allowed the use of his copyrighted voice in the biographical 2014 film The Theory of Everything, in which he was portrayed by Eddie Redmayne in an Academy Award-winning role. Hawking was featured at the Monty Python Live (Mostly) show in 2014. He was shown to sing an extended version of the "Galaxy Song", after running down Brian Cox with his wheelchair, in a pre-recorded video.
Hawking used his fame to advertise products, including a wheelchair, National Savings, British Telecom, Specsavers, Egg Banking, and Go Compare. In 2015, he applied to trademark his name.
Broadcast in March 2018 just a week or two before his death, Hawking was the voice of The Book Mark II on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, and he was the guest of Neil deGrasse Tyson on StarTalk.
On 8 January 2022, Google featured Hawking in a Google Doodle on the occasion of his 80th birth anniversary.
Stephen Hawking Quotes
- “One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.”
- “We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.”
- “Quiet people have the loudest minds.”
- “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”
- “However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope.”
- “Although I cannot move and I have to speak through a computer, in my mind I am free.”
- “The thing about smart people is that they seem like crazy people to dumb people.”
Awards and honours
Hawking received numerous awards and honours. Already early in the list, in 1974 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
Hawking was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1984), the American Philosophical Society (1984), and the United States National Academy of Sciences (1992).
Hawking received the 2015 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences shared with Viatcheslav Mukhanov for discovering that the galaxies were formed from quantum fluctuations in the early Universe.
At the 2016 Pride of Britain Awards, Hawking received the lifetime achievement award "for his contribution to science and British culture". After receiving the award from Prime Minister Theresa May, Hawking humorously requested that she not seek his help with Brexit.
The Hawking Fellowship
In 2017, the Cambridge Union Society, in conjunction with Hawking, established the Professor Stephen Hawking Fellowship. The fellowship is awarded annually to an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the STEM fields and social discourse, with a particular focus on impacts affecting the younger generations. Each fellow delivers a lecture on a topic of their choosing, known as the ‘Hawking Lecture’.
Hawking himself accepted the inaugural fellowship, and he delivered the first Hawking Lecture in his last public appearance before his passing.
Medal for Science Communication
Hawking was a member of the advisory board of the Starmus Festival, and had a major role in acknowledging and promoting science communication. The Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication is an annual award to honour members of the arts community for contributions that help build awareness of science. Recipients receive a medal bearing a portrait of Hawking by Alexei Leonov, and the other side represents an image of Leonov himself performing the first spacewalk along with an image of the "Red Special", the guitar of Queen musician and astrophysicist Brian May (with music being another major component of the Starmus Festival).
The Starmus III Festival in 2016 was a tribute to Stephen Hawking and the book of all Starmus III lectures, "Beyond the Horizon", was also dedicated to him. The first recipients of the medals, which were awarded at the festival, were chosen by Hawking himself. They were composer Hans Zimmer, physicist Jim Al-Khalili, and the science documentary Particle Fever.
Publications
Popular books
- A Brief History of Time (1988)
- Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (1993)
- The Universe in a Nutshell (2001)
- On the Shoulders of Giants (2002)
- God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History (2005)
- The Dreams That Stuff Is Made of: The Most Astounding Papers of Quantum Physics and How They Shook the Scientific World (2011)
- My Brief History (2013) Hawking's memoir.
- Brief Answers to the Big Questions (2018)
Co-authored
- The Nature of Space and Time (with Roger Penrose) (1996)
- The Large, the Small and the Human Mind (with Roger Penrose, Abner Shimony and Nancy Cartwright) (1997)
- The Future of Spacetime (with Kip Thorne, Igor Novikov, Timothy Ferris and introduction by Alan Lightman, Richard H. Price) (2002)
- A Briefer History of Time (with Leonard Mlodinow) (2005)
- The Grand Design (with Leonard Mlodinow) (2010)
Forewords
- Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (Kip Thorne, and introduction by Frederick Seitz) (1994)
- The Physics of Star Trek (Lawrence Krauss) (1995)
Children's fiction
Co-written with his daughter Lucy.
- George's Secret Key to the Universe (2007)
- George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt (2009)
- George and the Big Bang (2011)
- George and the Unbreakable Code (2014)
- George and the Blue Moon (2016)
Films and series
- A Brief History of Time (1992)
- Stephen Hawking's Universe (1997)
- Hawking – BBC television film (2004) starring Benedict Cumberbatch
- Horizon: The Hawking Paradox (2005)
- Masters of Science Fiction (2007)
- Stephen Hawking and the Theory of Everything (2007)
- Stephen Hawking: Master of the Universe (2008)
- Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking (2010)
- Brave New World with Stephen Hawking (2011)
- Stephen Hawking's Grand Design (2012)
- The Big Bang Theory (2012, 2014–2015, 2017)
- Stephen Hawking: A Brief History of Mine (2013)
- The Theory of Everything – Feature film (2014) starring Eddie Redmayne
- Genius by Stephen Hawking (2016)
Images for kids
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Hawking at an ALS convention in San Francisco in the 1980s
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Hawking with string theorists David Gross and Edward Witten at the Strings Conference in January 2001, TIFR, India
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Hawking holding a public lecture at the Stockholm Waterfront congress centre, 24 August 2015
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Hawking taking a zero-gravity flight in a reduced-gravity aircraft, April 2007
See also
In Spanish: Stephen Hawking para niños
