Gribbin John - Stephen Hawking

S T E P H E N

H A W K I N G

A LIFE IN SCIENCE

REVISED AND UPDATED EDITION

MICHAEL WHITE AND JOHN GRIBBIN

PEGASUS BOOKS

NEW YORK LONDON

STEPHEN HAWKING

Pegasus Books LLC

80 Broad Street, 5th Floor

New York, NY 10004

Copyright 2016 Michael White and John Gribbin

First Pegasus Books edition January 2016

Interior design by Maria Fernandez

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-60598-940-2

ISBN 978-1-68177-094-9 (e-book)

Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

For the grandchildren

John Gribbin

CONTENTS

14A Brief History of Time

W hen we first saw this book published in January 1992, it coincided with Stephen Hawkings fiftieth birthday. By that time, he was a world-renowned scientist, but he was also recognized by the public from a TV special about him that had recently been broadcast.

Neither of us imagined how successful A Life in Science would be. It became a #1 bestseller in Britain and stayed in the Sunday Times best-sellers list for three months. It was also translated into over two dozen languages and is considered by many to be the definite biography of Stephen Hawking.

And yet, even more unimaginable to us as we were researching and writing the book during 1990 and 1991 was that the hero of the story, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, would still be alive and working at the forefront of physics some quarter of a century later.

Today, Stephen Hawking is one of the most famous and immediately recognizable people in the world, a fact that has been helped enormously by the recent movie The Theory of Everything, which has been both a commercial and critical success. But, then, anything about Stephen Hawking is newsworthy. This would never have happened to any other scientist in the world. Apart from the fact that physicists are seen as somehow different from other human beings, existing outside the normal patterns of human life, there is likely no other scientist alive as famous as Stephen Hawking. But Stephen Hawking is no ordinary scientist. His book A Brief History of Time has notched up worldwide sales in the millionspublishing statistics usually associated with the likes of James Patterson or Dan Brown. What is even more astonishing is that Hawkings book deals with a subject so far removed from normal bedtime reading that the prospect of tackling such a text would send the average person into a paroxysm of inadequacy. Yet, as the world knows, Professor Hawkings book is a massive hit and has made his name around the world. Somehow he has managed to circumvent prejudice and to communicate his esoteric theories directly to the lay reader.

However, Stephen Hawkings story does not begin or end with A Brief History of Time. First and foremost, he is a very fine scientist. Indeed, he was already established at the cutting edge of theoretical physics long before the general public was even aware of his existence. His career as a scientist began over fifty years ago when he embarked on cosmological research at Cambridge University.

During that half-century, he has perhaps done more than anyone to push back the boundaries of our understanding of the Universe. His theoretical work on black holes and his progress in advancing our understanding of the origin and nature of the Universe have been groundbreaking and often revolutionary.

As his career has soared, he has led a domestic life as alien to most people as his work is esoteric. At the age of twenty-one, Hawking discovered that he had the wasting disease ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also called motor neuron disease, and he has spent much of his life confined to a wheelchair. However, he simply has not allowed his illness to hinder his scientific development. In fact, many would argue that his liberation from the routine chores of life has enabled him to make greater progress than if he were able-bodied. He has achieved global fame as a science popularizer with his multimillion-selling book and the many TV dramas and films made about him, while maintaining a high-powered career as a physicist.

Stephen Hawking does not like to dwell too much on his disabilities, and even less on his personal life. He would rather people thought of him 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. In this book we have tried our best to respect his wishes and have endeavored to paint a picture of a man with talents in abundance, but nonetheless a man like any other.

In attempting to describe Professor Hawkings work as well as the life of the man behind the science, we hope to enable the reader to see both from different perspectives. Although there are inevitable overlaps in the story, we hope this will help to place the science within the human contextindeed, to show that, for Stephen Hawking, science and life are inextricably linked.

Michael White, Perth

John Gribbin, Lewes

March 2015

S T E P H E N

H A W K I N G

A LIFE IN SCIENCE

I n an upscale restaurant near Cambridge city center, twelve young men and women sit around a large, linen-covered table set with plates and dishes, glasses, and cutlery. To one side is a man in a wheelchair. He is older than the others. He looks terribly frail, almost withered away to nothing, slumped motionless and seemingly lifeless against the black cloth cushion of his wheelchair. His hands, thin and pale, the fingers slender, lie in his lap. Set into the center of his sinewy throat, just below the collar of his open-necked shirt, is a plastic breathing device about two inches in diameter. But despite his disabilities, his face is alive and boyish, neatly brushed brown hair falling across his brow, only the lines beneath his eyes belying the fact that he is a contemporary of Keith Richards and Donald Trump. His head lolls forward, but from behind steel-rimmed spectacles his clear blue eyes are alert, raised slightly to survey the other faces around him. Beside him sits a nurse, her chair angled toward his as she positions a spoon to his lips and feeds him.

Occasionally she wipes his mouth.

There is an air of excitement in the restaurant. Around this man the young people laugh and joke, and occasionally address him or make a flippant remark in his direction. A moment later the babble of human voices is cut through by a rasping sound, a metallic voice, like something from the set of Star Warsthe man in the wheelchair makes a response that brings peals of laughter from the whole table. His eyes light up, and what has been described by some as the greatest smile in the world envelops his whole face. Suddenly you know that this man is very much alive.

As the diners begin their main course, there is a commotion at the restaurants entrance. A few moments later, the headwaiter walks toward the table escorting a smiling redhead in a fake-fur coat. Everyone at the table turns her way as she approaches, and there is an air of hushed expectation as she smiles across at them and says Hello to the gathering. She appears far younger than her years and looks terribly glamorous, a fact exaggerated by the general scruffiness of the young people at the table. Only the older man in the wheelchair is neatly dressed, in a plain jacket and neatly pressed shirt, his immaculately smart nurse beside him.