Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge.[6][17][18] Between 1979 and 2009, he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world.[19]
Stephen Hawking
14 March 2018 (aged 76)
- Hawking radiation
- A Brief History of Time
- Penrose–Hawking theorems
- Black hole information paradox
- Micro black hole
- Primordial black hole
- Chronology protection conjecture
- Soft hair (No hair theorem)
- Bekenstein–Hawking formula
- Hawking energy
- Hawking–Page phase transition
- Gibbons–Hawking ansatz
- Gibbons–Hawking effect
- Gibbons–Hawking space
- Gibbons–Hawking–York boundary term
- Hartle–Hawking state
- Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet
3, including Lucy
- Adams Prize (1966)
- Eddington Medal (1975)
- Maxwell Medal and Prize (1976)
- Heineman Prize (1976)
- Hughes Medal (1976)
- Albert Einstein Award (1978)
- Albert Einstein Medal (1979)
- RAS Gold Medal (1985)
- Dirac Medal (IOP) (1987)
- Wolf Prize (1988)
- Prince of Asturias Award (1989)
- Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (1992)
- Andrew Gemant Award (1998)
- Naylor Prize and Lectureship (1999)
- Lilienfeld Prize (1999)
- Albert Medal (1999)
- Copley Medal (2006)
- Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009)
- Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2012)
- BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2015)
Robert Berman[2]
Hawking was born in Oxford into a family of physicians. In October 1959, at the age of 17, he began his university education at University College, Oxford, where he received a first-class BA degree in physics. In October 1962, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where, in March 1966, he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology. 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.[20][21] After the loss of his speech, he communicated through a speech-generating device initially through use of a handheld switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle.[22]
Hawking's scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Initially, Hawking radiation was controversial. By the late 1970s, and following the publication of further research, 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.[23][24]
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. 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. He died in 2018 at the age of 76, having lived more than 50 years following his diagnosis of motor neurone disease.
Early life
Family
Hawking was born on 8 January 1942[25][26] in Oxford to Frank and Isobel Eileen Hawking (née Walker).[27][28] Hawking's mother was born into a family of doctors in Glasgow, Scotland.[29][30] His wealthy paternal great-grandfather, from Yorkshire, over-extended himself buying farm land and then went bankrupt in the great agricultural depression during the early 20th century.[30] His paternal great-grandmother saved the family from financial ruin by opening a school in their home.[30] Despite their families' financial constraints, both parents attended the University of Oxford, where Frank read medicine and Isobel read Philosophy, Politics and Economics.[28] Isobel worked as a secretary for a medical research institute, and Frank was a medical researcher.[28][31] Hawking had two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward Frank David (1955–2003).[32]
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.[33][34] In St Albans, the family was considered highly intelligent and somewhat eccentric;[33][35] meals were often spent with each person silently reading a book.[33] They lived a frugal existence in a large, cluttered, and poorly maintained house and travelled in a converted London taxicab.[36][37] During one of Hawking's father's frequent absences working in Africa,[38] the rest of the family spent four months in Mallorca visiting his mother's friend Beryl and her husband, the poet Robert Graves.[39]
Primary and secondary school years
Hawking began his schooling at the Byron House School in Highgate, London. He later blamed its "progressive methods" for his failure to learn to read while at the school.[40][33] 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.[39][41]
Hawking attended two private (i.e. fee-paying) schools, first Radlett School[41] and from September 1952, St Albans School, Hertfordshire,[26][42] after passing the eleven-plus a year early.[43] The family placed a high value on education.[33] 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 the financial aid of a scholarship, so Hawking remained at St Albans.[44][45] A positive consequence was that Hawking remained close to a group of friends with whom he enjoyed board games, the manufacture of fireworks, model aeroplanes and boats,[46] and long discussions about Christianity and extrasensory perception.[47] From 1958 on, with the help of the mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta, they built a computer from clock parts, an old telephone switchboard and other recycled components.[48][49]
Although known at school as "Einstein", Hawking was not initially successful academically.[50] With time, he began to show considerable aptitude for scientific subjects and, inspired by Tahta, decided to read mathematics at university.[51][52][53] Hawking's father advised him to study medicine, concerned that there were few jobs for mathematics graduates.[54] 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.[55][56]
Undergraduate years
Hawking began his university education at University College, Oxford,[26] in October 1959 at the age of 17.[57] For the first eighteen months, he was bored and lonely – he found the academic work "ridiculously easy".[58][59] His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said, "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."[2] A change occurred during his second and third years when, according to Berman, Hawking made more of an effort "to be one of the boys". He developed into a popular, lively and witty college-member, interested in classical music and science fiction.[57] Part of the transformation resulted from his decision to join the college boat-club, the University College Boat Club, where he coxed a rowing-crew.[60][61] The rowing-coach at the time noted that Hawking cultivated a daredevil image, steering his crew on risky courses that led to damaged boats.[60][62] Hawking estimated that he studied about 1,000 hours during his three years at Oxford. These unimpressive study habits made sitting his finals a challenge, and he decided to answer only theoretical physics questions rather than those requiring factual knowledge. A first-class degree was a condition of acceptance for his planned graduate study in cosmology at the University of Cambridge.[63][64] Anxious, he slept poorly the night before the examinations, and the result was on the borderline between first- and second-class honours, making a viva (oral examination) with the Oxford examiners necessary.[64][65]
Hawking was concerned that he was viewed as a lazy and difficult student. So, when asked at the viva 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."[64][66] He was held in higher regard than he believed; as Berman commented, the examiners "were intelligent enough to realise they were talking to someone far cleverer than most of themselves".[64] 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.[26][67][68]
Post-graduate years
Hawking's first year as a doctoral student was difficult. He was initially disappointed to find that he had been assigned Dennis William Sciama, one of the founders of modern cosmology, as a supervisor rather than the noted astronomer Fred Hoyle,[69][70] and he found his training in mathematics inadequate for work in general relativity and cosmology.[71] After being diagnosed with motor neurone disease, Hawking fell into a depression – though his doctors advised that he continue with his studies, he felt there was little point.[72] His disease progressed more slowly than doctors had predicted. Although Hawking had difficulty walking unsupported, and his speech was almost unintelligible, an initial diagnosis that he had only two years to live proved unfounded. With Sciama's encouragement, he returned to his work.[73][74] Hawking started developing a reputation for brilliance and brashness when he publicly challenged the work of Hoyle and his student Jayant Narlikar at a lecture in June 1964.[75][76]
When Hawking began his doctoral studies, there was much debate in the physics community about the prevailing theories of the creation of the universe: the Big Bang and Steady State theories.[77] Inspired by Roger Penrose's theorem of a spacetime singularity in the centre of black holes, Hawking applied the same thinking to the entire universe; and, during 1965, he wrote his thesis on this topic.[78][79] Hawking's thesis[80] was approved in 1966.[80] There were other positive developments: Hawking received a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge;[81] he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology, in March 1966;[82] and his essay "Singularities and the Geometry of Space–Time" shared top honours with one by Penrose to win that year's prestigious Adams Prize.[83][82]
Career
1966–1975
In his work, and in collaboration with Penrose, Hawking extended the singularity theorem concepts first explored in his doctoral thesis. This included not only the existence of singularities but also the theory that the universe might have started as a singularity. Their joint essay was the runner-up in the 1968 Gravity Research Foundation competition.[84][85] In 1970, they published a proof that if the universe obeys the general theory of relativity and fits any of the models of physical cosmology developed by Alexander Friedmann, then it must have begun as a singularity.[86][87][88] In 1969, Hawking accepted a specially created Fellowship for Distinction in Science to remain at Caius.[89]
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.[90] With James M. Bardeen and Brandon Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics.[91] To Hawking's irritation, Jacob Bekenstein, a graduate student of John Wheeler, went further—and ultimately correctly—to apply thermodynamic concepts literally.[92][93]
In the early 1970s, Hawking's work with Carter, Werner Israel, and David C. Robinson strongly supported Wheeler's no-hair theorem, one that states that no matter what the original material from which a black hole is created, it can be completely described by the properties of mass, electrical charge and rotation.[94][95] His essay titled "Black Holes" won the Gravity Research Foundation Award in January 1971.[96] Hawking's first book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, written with George Ellis, was published in 1973.[97]
Beginning in 1973, Hawking moved into the study of quantum gravity and quantum mechanics.[98][97] His work in this area was spurred by a visit to Moscow and discussions with Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich and Alexei Starobinsky, whose work showed that according to the uncertainty principle, rotating black holes emit particles.[99] To Hawking's annoyance, his much-checked calculations produced findings that contradicted his second law, which claimed black holes could never get smaller,[100] and supported Bekenstein's reasoning about their entropy.[99][101]
His results, which Hawking presented from 1974, showed that black holes emit radiation, known today as Hawking radiation, which may continue until they exhaust their energy and evaporate.[102][103][104] Initially, Hawking radiation was controversial. By the late 1970s and following the publication of further research, the discovery was widely accepted as a significant breakthrough in theoretical physics.[105][106][107] 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.[108][109]
Hawking was appointed to the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Visiting Professorship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1974. He worked with a friend on the faculty, Kip Thorne,[110][6] and engaged him in a scientific wager about whether the X-ray source Cygnus X-1 was a black hole. The wager was an "insurance policy" against the proposition that black holes did not exist.[111] Hawking acknowledged that he had lost the bet in 1990, a bet that was the first of several he was to make with Thorne and others.[112] Hawking had maintained ties to Caltech, spending a month there almost every year since this first visit.[113]
1975–1990
Hawking returned to Cambridge in 1975 to a more academically senior post, as reader in gravitational physics. The mid-to-late 1970s were a period of growing public interest in black holes and the physicists who were studying them. Hawking was regularly interviewed for print and television.[114][115] He also received increasing academic recognition of his work.[116] In 1975, he was awarded both the Eddington Medal and the Pius XI Gold Medal, and in 1976 the Dannie Heineman Prize, the Maxwell Medal and Prize and the Hughes Medal.[117][118] He was appointed a professor with a chair in gravitational physics in 1977.[119] The following year he received the Albert Einstein Medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.[120][116]
In 1979, Hawking was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.[116][121] His inaugural lecture in this role was titled: "Is the End in Sight for Theoretical Physics?" and proposed N = 8 supergravity as the leading theory to solve many of the outstanding problems physicists were studying.[122] His promotion coincided with a health-crisis which led to his accepting, albeit reluctantly, some nursing services at home.[123] At the same time, he was also making a transition in his approach to physics, becoming more intuitive and speculative rather than insisting on mathematical proofs. "I would rather be right than rigorous", he told Kip Thorne.[124] In 1981, he proposed that information in a black hole is irretrievably lost when a black hole evaporates. This information paradox violates the fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics, and led to years of debate, including "the Black Hole War" with Leonard Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft.[125][126]
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 to marry, aware of the potential challenges that lay ahead due to Hawking's shortened life expectancy and physical limitations.[120][220] Hawking later said that the engagement gave him "something to live for".[221] The two were married on 14 July 1965 in their shared hometown of St Albans.[81]
The couple resided in Cambridge, within Hawking's walking distance to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP). 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,[222][223] Lucy, born November 1970,[224] and Timothy, born April 1979.[116]
Hawking rarely discussed his illness and physical challenges—even, in a precedent set during their courtship, with Jane.[225] His disabilities meant that the responsibilities of home and family rested firmly on his wife's increasingly overwhelmed shoulders, leaving him more time to think about physics.[226] Upon his appointment in 1974 to a year-long position at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, Jane proposed that a graduate or post-doctoral student live with them and help with his care. Hawking accepted, and Bernard Carr travelled with them as the first of many students who fulfilled this role.[227][228] The family spent a generally happy and stimulating year in Pasadena.[229]
Hawking returned to Cambridge in 1975 to a new home and a new job, as reader. Don Page, with whom Hawking had begun a close friendship at Caltech, arrived to work as the live-in graduate student assistant. With Page's help and that of a secretary, Jane's responsibilities were reduced so she could return to her doctoral thesis and her new interest in singing.[230]
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.[119][231][232] According to Jane, her husband was accepting of the situation, stating "he would not object so long as I continued to love him".[119][233][234] Jane and Hellyer Jones were determined not to break up the family, and their relationship remained platonic for a long period.[235]
By the 1980s, Hawking's marriage had been strained for many years. Jane felt overwhelmed by the intrusion into their family life of the required nurses and assistants.[236] The impact of his celebrity status was challenging for colleagues and family members, while the prospect of living up to a worldwide fairytale image was daunting for the couple.[237][181] Hawking's views of religion also contrasted with her strong Christian faith and resulted in tension.[181][238][239] After a tracheotomy in 1985, Hawking required a full-time nurse and nursing care was split across three shifts daily. In the late 1980s, Hawking grew close to one of his nurses, Elaine Mason, to the dismay of some colleagues, caregivers, and family members, who were disturbed by her strength of personality and protectiveness.[240] In February 1990, Hawking told Jane that he was leaving her for Mason[241] and departed the family home.[143] After his divorce from Jane in 1995, Hawking married Mason in September,[143][242] declaring, "It's wonderful – I have married the woman I love."[243]
In 1999, Jane Hawking published a memoir, Music to Move the Stars, describing her marriage to Hawking and its breakdown. Its revelations caused a sensation in the media but, as was his usual practice regarding his personal life, Hawking made no public comment except to say that he did not read biographies about himself.[244] After his second marriage, Hawking's family felt excluded and marginalised from his life.[239] For a period of about five years in the early 2000s, his family and staff became increasingly worried that he was being physically abused.[245] Police investigations took place, but were closed as Hawking refused to make a complaint.[246]
In 2006, Hawking and Mason quietly divorced,[247][248] and Hawking resumed closer relationships with Jane, his children, and his grandchildren.[181][248] Reflecting on this happier period, a revised version of Jane's book, re-titled Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, appeared in 2007,[246] and was made into a film, The Theory of Everything, in 2014.[249]
Disability
Hawking had a rare early-onset, slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease (MND; also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurones in the brain and spinal cord, which gradually paralysed him over decades.[21]
Hawking had experienced increasing clumsiness during his final year at Oxford, including a fall on some stairs and difficulties when rowing.[250][251] The problems worsened, and his speech became slightly slurred. His family noticed the changes when he returned home for Christmas, and medical investigations were begun.[252][253] The MND diagnosis came when Hawking was 21, in 1963. At the time, doctors gave him a life expectancy of two years.[254][255]
In the late 1960s, Hawking's physical abilities declined: he began to use crutches and could no longer give lectures regularly.[256] As he slowly lost the ability to write, he developed compensatory visual methods, including seeing equations in terms of geometry.[257][258] The physicist Werner Israel later compared the achievements to Mozart composing an entire symphony in his head.[259][260] Hawking was fiercely independent and unwilling to accept help or make concessions for his disabilities. He preferred to be regarded as "a scientist first, popular science writer second, and, in all the ways that matter, a normal human being with the same desires, drives, dreams, and ambitions as the next person".[261] His wife Jane later noted: "Some people would call it determination, some obstinacy. I've called it both at one time or another."[262] He required much persuasion to accept the use of a wheelchair at the end of the 1960s,[263] but ultimately became notorious for the wildness of his wheelchair driving.[264] Hawking was a popular and witty colleague, but his illness, as well as his reputation for brashness, distanced him from some.[262]
When Hawking first began using a wheelchair he was using standard motorised models. The earliest surviving example of these chairs was made by BEC Mobility and sold by Christie's in November 2018 for £296,750.[265] Hawking continued to use this type of chair until the early 1990s, at which time his ability to use his hands to drive a wheelchair deteriorated. Hawking used a variety of different chairs from that time, including a DragonMobility Dragon elevating powerchair from 2007, as shown in the April 2008 photo of Hawking attending NASA's 50th anniversary;[266] a Permobil C350 from 2014; and then a Permobil F3 from 2016.[267]
Hawking's speech deteriorated, and by the late 1970s he could be understood by only his family and closest friends. To communicate with others, someone who knew him well would interpret his speech into intelligible speech.[268] Spurred by a dispute with the university over who would pay for the ramp needed for him to enter his workplace, Hawking and his wife campaigned for improved access and support for those with disabilities in Cambridge,[269][270] including adapted student housing at the university.[271] In general, Hawking had ambivalent feelings about his role as a disability rights champion: while wanting to help others, he also sought to detach himself from his illness and its challenges.[272] His lack of engagement in this area led to some criticism.[273]
During a visit to CERN on the border of France and Switzerland in mid-1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia, which in his condition was life-threatening; he was so ill that Jane was asked if life support should be terminated. She refused, but the consequence was a tracheotomy, which required round-the-clock nursing care and caused the loss of what remained of his speech.[274][275] The National Health Service was ready to pay for a nursing home, but Jane was determined that he would live at home. The cost of the care was funded by an American foundation.[276][277] Nurses were hired for the three shifts required to provide the round-the-clock support he required. One of those employed was Elaine Mason, who was to become Hawking's second wife.[278]
For his communication, Hawking initially raised his eyebrows to choose letters on a spelling card,[279] but in 1986 he received a computer program called the "Equalizer" from Walter Woltosz, CEO of Words Plus, who had developed an earlier version of the software to help his mother-in-law, who also had ALS and had lost her ability to speak and write.[280] In a method he used for the rest of his life, Hawking could now simply press a switch to select phrases, words or letters from a bank of about 2,500–3,000 that were scanned.[281][282] The program was originally run on a desktop computer. Elaine Mason's husband, David, a computer engineer, adapted a small computer and attached it to his wheelchair.[283]
Released from the need to use somebody to interpret his speech, Hawking commented that "I can communicate better now than before I lost my voice."[284] The voice he used had an American accent and is no longer produced.[285][286] Despite the later availability of other voices, Hawking retained this original voice, saying that he preferred it and identified with it.[287] Originally, Hawking activated a switch using his hand and could produce up to 15 words per minute.[151] Lectures were prepared in advance and were sent to the speech synthesiser in short sections to be delivered.[285]
Hawking gradually lost the use of his hand, and in 2005 he began to control his communication device with movements of his cheek muscles,[288][289][290] with a rate of about one word per minute.[289] With this decline there was a risk of him developing locked-in syndrome, so Hawking collaborated with Intel Corporation researchers on systems that could translate his brain patterns or facial expressions into switch activations. After several prototypes that did not perform as planned, they settled on an adaptive word predictor made by the London-based startup SwiftKey, which used a system similar to his original technology. Hawking had an easier time adapting to the new system, which was further developed after inputting large amounts of Hawking's papers and other written materials and uses predictive software similar to other smartphone keyboards.[181][280][290][291]
By 2009, he could no longer drive his wheelchair independently, but the same people who created his new typing mechanics were working on a method to drive his chair using movements made by his chin. This proved difficult, since Hawking could not move his neck, and trials showed that while he could indeed drive the chair, the movement was sporadic and jumpy.[280][292] Near the end of his life, Hawking experienced increased breathing difficulties, often resulting in his requiring the usage of a ventilator, and being regularly hospitalised.[181]
Disability outreach
Starting in the 1990s, Hawking accepted the mantle of role model for disabled people, lecturing and participating in fundraising activities.[293] 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.[294][295] In 1999, Hawking was awarded the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society.[296]
In August 2012, Hawking narrated the "Enlightenment" segment of the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony in London.[297] In 2013, the biographical documentary film Hawking, in which Hawking himself is featured, was released.[298] In September 2013, he expressed support for the legalisation of assisted suicide for the terminally ill.[299] 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.[300]
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", "their art is dead" and that scientists "have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge". He said that philosophical problems can be answered by science, particularly new scientific theories which "lead us to a new and very different picture of the universe and our place in it".[355] His view was both praised and criticised.[356]