Palestinian may refer to:

• Something of, from, or related to the geographic region of Palestine, the declared State of Palestine, or the "Palestinian territories" (i.e., West Bank and Gaza Strip)
• People residing in the above (or wishing to), such as:
  • Palestinian Arabs (often simply called the "Palestinian people")
  • Palestinian Christians, i.e., Christians with ethnic or family origins in Palestine,
  • Palestinian Jews, a Jewish inhabitant of Palestine throughout certain periods of history
• Palestinian Arabic, a dialect of the Arabic language

See also:

• Demographics of Palestine
• Demographics of the Palestinian territories
• Palestinian diaspora
• Palestinian refugee
• Culture of Palestine

• • For specific persons, see List of Palestinians

See also[link]

Look up palestinian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Definitions of Palestine
• Definitions of Palestinian
• List of all pages beginning with "Palestinian"

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Amos Yadlin
Amos Yadlin as attaché to Washington
Born	1951 Hatzerim, Israel
Allegiance	Israel
Service/branch	Military Intelligence Directorate
Years of service	1970—2010
Rank	Aluf
Commands held	Air Intelligence Directorate, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Air Force
Battles/wars	Yom Kippur War, Operation Opera, First Lebanon War, Second Lebanon War
Relations	Aharon Yadlin (son), David HaCohen (grandson)

Aluf (Major General, res.) Amos Yadlin (Hebrew: עמוס ידלין‎, born 1951) is a former Israeli Air Force (IAF) general, Israel Defense Forces military attaché to Washington, D.C. and head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman).

Biography[link]

Amos Yadlin was born in Kibbutz Hatzerim and in 1970 enlisted in the IAF. After qualifying as a fighter pilot, Yadlin joined the 102 "Flying Tiger" Squadron, with which he flew the A-4 Skyhawk during the Yom Kippur War. In the early 1980s Yadlin was among the first batch of Israeli pilots to fly the F-16 Fighting Falcon and was among the eight pilots selected to carry out Operation Opera against Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981. A year later, Yadlin participated in Operation Peace for Galilee. In all he had accumulated about 5,000 flight hours and flew more than 250 combat missions. Yadlin commanded two fighter squadrons (116 and 106), two Israeli Air Force bases (Nevatim and Hatzerim) and between 1990 and 1993 headed the IAF's planning department. He then served as Deputy Commander of the IAF.^[1][2]

In February 2002 Yadlin was awarded the rank of Major General and appointed commander of the IDF's Military Colleges and National Defence College. Between 2004 and 2006 he served as Israel's military attaché to the United States. Upon his return to Israel, Yadlin was named head of Aman, the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate.^[1][2]

After his retirement from the IDF in November 2010, Yadlin joined the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as the Kay Fellow on Israeli national security. In November 2011, he was appointed director of Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies.^[1]

Yadlin obtained a B.A. in Economics and Business Administration at Ben Gurion University in the Negev. He received a master’s degree in Public Administration from the JFK School of Government, Harvard University.^[3]

Publications[link]

• Yadlin, Amos (2004). "Ethical Dilemmas in Fighting Terrorism". Jerusalem center for public affairs. http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief004-8.htm. Retrieved June 19, 2011. 

References[link]

v t e Heads of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate Be'eri (1948–49) · Herzog (1949–50) · Gibli (1950–55) · Harkabi (1955–59) · Herzog (1959–62) · Amit (1962–63) · Yariv (1964–72) · Zeira (1972–74) · Gazit (1974–78) · Saguy (1979–83) · Barak (1983–85) · Lipkin-Shahak (1986–91) · Sagi (1991–95) · Ya'alon (1995–98) · Malka (1998–2002) · Ze'evi-Farkash (2002–06) · Yadlin (2006–2010) · Kochavi (2010–)

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Shaul Mishal, Professor of Political Science

Shaul Mishal is a professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University. Founded and directed the Center for Israeli Arab Studies. Authored and co-authored several books and numerous articles in subjects related to Arab and Islamic political cultures and Palestinian politics. Visiting Professor at Yale University, visiting scholar at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard and Senior Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. Received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and completed post-Doctoral studies at Yale University.

Hamas-goals[link]

Mishal's main thesis deals with Palestinian Hamas. It is often described solely as a movement identified with Islamic fundamentalism and suicide bombings. The objectives at the top of its agenda are the liberation of Palestine through a holy war (Jihad) against Israel, establishing an Islamic state on its soil, and reforming society in the spirit of true Islam. It is this Islamic vision, combined with its nationalist claims and militancy toward Israel, that accounts for the prevailing image of Hamas as a rigid movement, ready to pursue its goals at any cost, with no limits or constraints . Yet, Mishal claims that a close scrutiny of Hamas’s roots and its record since its establishment at the outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising (Intifada)Against the Israeli occupation in December 1987 reveals that, although Hamas has been reluctant to publicly compromise its ultimate objectives, it does not subordinate its activities and decisions to the officially held religious doctrine. Rather, it operates in a context of opportunities and constraints, conflicting interests, and cost-benefit considerations, and is attentive to the fluctuating needs and desires of the Palestinian population and cognizant of power relations and political feasibility. Moreover, despite the horrifying toll claimed by Hamas’s violence, it is essentially a social and political movement, providing extensive community eervices and responding constantly to political reality through bargaining and power brokering. Along this line, it has been reluctant to adhere to its religious dogma at any price and so has tended to adopt political strategies that minimize the danger of rigidly adhering to principle, doctrine, or ideology, ready to respond or adjust to fluid conditions. Thus, Mishal concludes that a political understanding between Hamas and Israel, through a third party, is a viable option. Such a course would minimize the intensity of the shock to its supporters if it entered a public dialogue with Israel.^[1]

Hamas-Victory and regime change[link]

In 2006, Hamas won 74 out of the legislative council's 132 seats, capturing a majority and becoming the dominant force in the new Palestinian government. Mishal asserts that Hamas's electoral victory over the Fatah-led nationalist camp is not merely an act of transfer of power but a mandate for regime change. Regime change, unlike transfer of power, entails a revision of the fundamental principles of government and the overall goals of the Palestinian Authority − a redefinition of the PA's regional and international policies, as well as its basic parameters and red lines concerning its approach to Israel. Given Hamas's Islamic doctrine, regime change harbors religious significance for the Palestinian national agenda.

The Islam-driven worldview spawns several principles, first of all, a commitment to territorial maximalism with an eye towards the establishment of an Islamic state throughout all of Mandatory Palestine. This vision replaces the political realism that accepts the framework of a two-state solution, Israel alongside a Palestinian state. A second principle is Islamic social activism, instead of a civil-minded, state-wide program; and a third principle is the perception of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a predetermined clash of destinies, instead of a conflict over boundaries.^[2]

Hamas-Dissenting views[link]

The notion that Hamas could somehow be lured away from its agenda seems to be gaining wider currency. In an address to a group of European MPs, The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said his government was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. Yet, there are others who suggest that hamas's acceptance of a cease fire is only a ploy. Efraim karsh claims in this regard that " Above all, not only is the destruction of Israel not a bargaining chip, it is the heart of the matter. Hamas, which is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, sees the struggle for Palestine as neither an ordinary political dispute between two contending nations (Israelis and Palestinians), nor even as a struggle for national self-determination by an indigenous population against a foreign occupier. Rather, it sees Palestine as but one battle in a worldwide holy war to prevent the fall of a part of the House of Islam to infidels".^[3]

The Palestinians- A network approach[link]

Palestinians did not, and still do not fully have, a state that can try to penetrate society and create a hierarchical system in which external links flow through it. While communal affiliations play a role in dividing Palestinian society along regional and extended family lines, it too has not played a definitive role in shaping Palestinian identity and claims to self-determination vis a vis Israel. Having no state and formal political institutions, and being divided among themselves by the ideological currents gripping the Arab world, Palestinian society emerged as a networked society par excellence. Palestinians lacked any kind of hierarchical or networked state, instead being divided among other states none of which, with the partial exception of Jordan, attempted in any way to assimilate them into their societies. Palestinians were divided by ideologies between various streams of pan-Arabism.

since the Palestinians continued to lack a state, they were unable to build a centralized institutions and a hierarchical political order. The decentralized nature of Palestinian society has become all the more evident in the wake of the Oslo Accords - despite the fact that the Palestinians had been given an opportunity to begin constructing a hierarchical state to penetrate and centralize Palestinian society via the PA. They have in fact made the PA into a reflection of their society - an amalgamation of decentralized and perpetually quarreling factions. Hence, in the Palestinian case, the society is penetrating the state rather than vice versa.

The 1993 Declaration of Principles (the first, in a series of agreements that came to be known as the Oslo Accords) signed between Israel and the PLO was followed by the establishment of the PA in May 1994. Despite the creation of a quasi-official Palestinian government, the pattern of relations between Israel and the Palestinians did not change significantly, despite the existence of a supposedly all-Palestinian PA, and was still based on relations between Israel and the PLO (especially Fatah). Yasser Arafat’s hesitation to transfer real authority from Fatah to the organs of the PA, thus ensured that real understandings reached between him and Israel will tend to be based on informal channels of communication rather than via official links. Hence, as in the case of Jordan (but all the more so since the Palestinian state is still in its fetal stage), ties tend, to a large extent, to be based on informal relations and a large measure of trust - since formal agreements worked out with the PA will be largely meaningless if not backed by Fatah.

This network analysis has major implications for the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. It suggests that codified agreements between Israel and the PA provide only a part of the overall relationship between the parties. Trust is essential since most of the relationships exist outside the documents and the formalized relationships provide insufficient certainty since they are not binding on the parties with respect to the final settlement of the conflict.^[4]

Shiite Leadership[link]

Shiites, says conventional wisdom, seek to convert the Sunni world, take over the Middle East or simply bomb Israel into the Stone Age. In any case, their plan is clear-cut, drastic and single-minded. All means necessary are appropriate for its realization. yet Mishal claims that Close scrutiny reveals, however, that Shiite leadership lives and acts in a more complex world. Shiite leadership is new at the helm of government, yet acts with the prudence of long experience. It is spoken of as mystical or therworldly in essence, yet its behavior is often realistically sober. While the far-reaching vision of the new Shiite leadership appears utopian, its demeanor frequently seems skeptical and wary. The worldview of Shiite leadership is one which contracts and expands continuously. Shiite leaders are nationalists, but see themselves as a regional, even global power. They are propelled by a keen awareness of their population's needs, while being motivated by an inextricable link to eternal truths.

Life in a state of discrepancy encourages Shiite leaders to reject the notion that reality begins with abstract ideas. They feel uncomfortable with ascetic mysticism, which calls for the abandonment of the self and a union with the divine. Conversely, Shiite leaders refuse to see actions and interests as the basis of reality. They cannot accept the Marxist understanding of history as determined by struggles over power. At the same time, they disown Capitalism, the notion that a free market regulates itself both morally and financially.^[5]

Principal Publications[link]

Books[link]

• The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence and Coexistence (with A. Sela) Columbia University Press, First Edition 2000, Second Edition 2006. Also published as: The Hamas Wind - Violence and Coexistence Yediot Ahronot Books, First Edition 1999, Second Edition 2006 (Hebrew).

• Investment in Peace: The Politics of Economic Cooperation Between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians (with R. Kuperman, D. Boas) Sussex Academic Press, 2001.

• Speaking Stones: Communiques from the Intifada Underground (with R. Aharoni) Syracuse University Press, 1994. Also published as Speaking Stones: The Words Behind the Palestinian Intifada Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1989 (Hebrew).

• The PLO Under Arafat: Between Gun and Olive Branch Yale University Press, 1986.

• West Bank, East Bank: The Palestinians in Jordan, 1949–1967 Yale University Press, 1978.

Selected Articles[link]

• Place as a Source of Identity in Colonizing Societies: Israeli Settlements in Gaza Geographical Review, Vol.98, No.2, pp., 242-259, 2008. (With I. Schnell)

• " Al Qaeda as Dune Organization toward a Typology of Islamic Terrorism Organization" (with M. Rosenthal). Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol.28, No.4, 2005, pp. 275–293.

• " What Happened to Suicide Bombing in Israel: Insight from a Terror Stock Model" (with E. Kaplan, A. Mintz, C. Samban). Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol.28, No.3, 2005, pp. 225–235.

• " The Pragmatic Dimension of the Palestinian Hamas: A Network Perspective" Armed Forces and Society, Vol.29, No.4, 2003, pp. 569–589.

• " Political Expectations and Cultural Perceptions in the Arab-Israeli Peace Negotiations" (with N. Morag). Political Psychology, Vol.23, No.2, 2002, pp. 325–353.

also recommended as a must-read resource on Diplomacy, an article recently published in the International Relations module of Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO), edited by Christopher Seely (2011).

• " Participation Without Presence: Hamas, the PA and the Politics of Negotiated Coexistance" (with A. Sela). Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.38, 2002, pp. 1–26.

• " The Network State: Triangular Relations in Middle Eastern Politics" (with I. Talmud). International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, Vol.37, No.2, 2000, pp. 175–197.

• " Trust or Contract? Negotiating Formal and Informal Agreements in the Arab-Israeli Peace Process" (with N. Morag). International Negotiation, No.5, 2000, pp. 523–542.

• "Intifada Discourse: The Hamas and UNL Leaflets" The PLO and Israel, Avraham Sela and Moshe Ma´oz (eds.), St. Martin's Press, 1997.

• " Israel and the PLO: A Game with Different Information" (with D. Schmiedler, I. Sened). Game Theory and Applications, T. Ichiishi, A. Neyman, Y. Touman (eds.), Academic Press, 1990.

• "The Unfolding of the Intifada" Survey of Jewish Affairs 1990, William Frankel (ed.), Basil Blackwell, 1990, pp. 3–23.

• " Paper War - Words Behind Stones: The Intifada Leaflets" The Jerusalem Quarterly, No.51, 1989, pp. 71–94.

• " Coalition Formation in the Arab World: An Analytical Perspective" (with A. Diskin) International Interactions, Vol.11, 1984, pp. 43–59.

• " Palestinian Voting in the West Bank: Electoral Behavior in a Traditional Community Without Sovereignty" (with A. Diskin). The Journal of Politics, Vo.44, 1982, pp. 538–58.

• " Nationalism through Localism: Some Observations on the West Bank Political Elite" The Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.17, 1981, pp. 478–91.

External links[link]

• Mishal dicusses Hamas-hebrew
• Mishal dicusses suicide bombing-hebrew
• Mishal dicusses Israel attitude toward Hamas-interview for "Data Line"
• Mishal dicusses Hamas Organizational structure-hebrew
• Mishal Personal interview-hebrew
• Mishal discusses the Israeli Palestinian relations after Yasser Arafat's death.
• Mishal predicts an upcoming intifada that will break out in Jerusalem .

See also[link]

• Hamas

• Palestine Liberation Organization

• Palestine

• Network theory

• Shia Islam

• Shia Crescent

• Shia Tide

References[link]

שאול משעל

Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking at NASA, 1980s
Born	Stephen William Hawking (1942-01-08) 8 January 1942 (age 70) Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Residence	United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Fields	Mathematics Theoretical physics
Institutions	Cambridge University California Institute of Technology Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Alma mater	Oxford University Cambridge University
Doctoral advisor	Dennis Sciama
Other academic advisors	Robert Berman
Known for	Black holes Theoretical cosmology Quantum gravity Hawking radiation
Influences	Dikran Tahta
Notable awards	Albert Einstein Award (1978) Wolf Prize (1988) Prince of Asturias Award (1989) Copley Medal (2006) Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009)
Spouse	Jane Hawking (m. 1965–1991, divorced) Elaine Mason (m. 1995–2006, divorced)

Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. His key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein–Hawking radiation).

He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009. Subsequently, he became research director at the university's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology.

Hawking has a motor neurone disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition that has progressed over the years. He is now almost completely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device. He has been married twice and has three children. Hawking has achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Early life and education[link]

Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 to Frank Hawking, a research biologist, and Isobel Hawking.^[1] He has two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward.^[2] Although Hawking's parents were living in North London, he was born in Oxford as his parents felt it was safer to stay in Oxford for the later stages of the pregnancy. (London was under attack at the time by the Luftwaffe).^[3]

When his father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research^[1] in 1950, Hawking and his family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire.^[3] Hawking attended St Albans High School for Girls from 1950 to 1953 (At that time, boys could attend the girls' school until the age of 10).^[2] and then from the age of 11, he attended St Albans School, where he was a good, but not exceptional, student.^[3]

Inspired by his mathematics teacher, Hawking originally wanted to study the subject at university. However, Hawking's father wanted him to apply to University College, Oxford, where his father had attended. As University College did not have a mathematics fellow at that time, applications were not accepted from students who wished to study that discipline. Hawking therefore applied to read natural sciences with an emphasis in Physics. He was accepted and gained a scholarship.^[3] While at Oxford, he coxed a rowing team, which, he stated, helped relieve his immense boredom at the university.^[4] 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. ... his mind was completely different from all of his contemporaries".^[3]

Hawking's unimpressive study habits resulted in a final examination score on the borderline between first and second class honours, making an "oral examination" necessary.^[3] Berman said of the oral examination: "And of course the examiners then were intelligent enough to realize they were talking to someone far more clever than most of themselves".^[3] After receiving his B.A. degree at Oxford in 1962, he left for graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.^[3]

Career[link]

1962-1975[link]

Hawking in Cambridge

Hawking with string theorists David Gross and Edward Witten

Although Hawking started developing symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis as soon as he arrived at Cambridge and did not distinguish himself in his first two years at Cambridge, he returned to working on his PhD after the disease had stabilised and with the help of his doctoral tutor, Dennis William Sciama.^[5]

When Hawking began his graduate studies In the 1960s, there was much debate in the physics community about the opposing theories of the creation of the universe: big bang, and steady state.^[5] Hawking and his Cambridge friend and colleague, Roger Penrose, showed in 1970 that if the universe obeys general relativity and if the universe fits any of the Friedmann models, then the universe must have begun as a singularity.^[6] This work showed that, far from being mathematical curiosities which appear only in special cases, singularities are a fairly generic feature of general relativity.^[7]

Hawking's work with Brandon Carter, Werner Israel and D. Robinson, strongly supported John Wheeler's no-hair theorem – that any black hole is fully described by the three properties of mass, angular momentum, and electric charge.^[8] With Bardeen and Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics.^[9] In 1974, he calculated that black holes should thermally create and emit subatomic particles, known today as Bekenstein-Hawking radiation, until they exhaust their energy and evaporate.^[6]

Hawking was elected one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society in 1974,^[10] and in the same year he accepted the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to work with his friend, Kip Thorne, who was a faculty member there.^[11] He continues to have ties with Caltech, spending a month each year there since 1992.^[12]

1975-present[link]

The mid to late 1970s were a period of growing fame and success for Hawking, his work was now much talked about, he was appearing in popular television documentaries and in 1979 he was made the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a post he held for 30 years until his retirement in 2009.^[13][14] Hawking's inaugural lecture as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics had the title "Is the end in sight for Theoretical Physics" and promoted the idea that supergravity would help resolve many of the outstanding problems physicists were studying. ^[14]

In collaboration with Jim Hartle, Hawking developed a model in which the universe had no boundary in space-time, replacing the initial singularity of the classical Big Bang models with a region akin to the North Pole: one cannot travel north of the North Pole, as there is no boundary.^[15] While originally the no-boundary proposal predicted a closed universe, discussions with Neil Turok led to the realisation that the no-boundary proposal is also consistent with a universe which is not closed.^[16]

Along with Thomas Hertog at CERN, in 2006 Hawking proposed a theory of "top-down cosmology", which says that the universe had no unique initial state, and therefore it is inappropriate for physicists to attempt to formulate a theory that predicts the universe's current configuration from one particular initial state.^[17] Top-down cosmology posits that in some sense, the present "selects" the past from a superposition of many possible histories. In doing so, the theory suggests a possible resolution of the fine-tuning question.^[18]

Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet[link]

U.S. President Barack Obama talks with Stephen Hawking in the Blue Room of the White House before a ceremony presenting him and 15 others the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 12 August 2009. The Medal of Freedom is the United States' highest civilian honour.

In 1997 Hawking made a public scientific wager with Thorne and John Preskill of Caltech concerning the black hole information paradox.^[19] Thorne and Hawking argued that since general relativity made it impossible for black holes to radiate, and lose information, the mass-energy and information carried by Hawking Radiation must be "new", and must not originate from inside the black hole event horizon. Since this contradicted the idea under quantum mechanics of microcausality, quantum mechanics would need to be rewritten. Preskill argued the opposite, that since quantum mechanics suggests that the information emitted by a black hole relates to information that fell in at an earlier time, the view of black holes given by general relativity must be modified in some way.^[20] The winner of the bet was to receive an encyclopedia of the loser's choice, from which information may be accessed.^[19]

In 2004, Hawking announced that he was conceding the bet, and that he now believed that black hole horizons should fluctuate and leak information, in doing so providing Preskill with a copy of Total Baseball.^[19] Comparing the useless information obtainable from a black hole to "burning an encyclopedia", Hawking commented, "I gave John an encyclopedia of baseball, but maybe I should just have given him the ashes".^[19]

Recognition[link]

Acclaim[link]

On 19 December 2007, a statue of Hawking by artist Ian Walters was unveiled at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, University of Cambridge.^[21] The Stephen W. Hawking Science Museum in San Salvador, El Salvador, is named in honour of Stephen Hawking, citing his scientific distinction and perseverance in dealing with adversity.^[22] The Stephen Hawking Building in Cambridge opened on 17 April 2007. The building belongs to Gonville and Caius College and is used as an undergraduate accommodation and conference facility.^[23]

Awards and honours[link]

Personal life[link]

Stephen Hawking being presented by his daughter Lucy Hawking at the lecture he gave for NASA's 50th anniversary

Hawking has stated that, having been diagnosed with ALS during an early stage of his graduate work, he did not see much point in obtaining a doctorate if he were to die soon after. Hawking later said that the real turning point was his 1965 marriage to Jane Wilde, a language student.^[29] Jane cared for him until 1990 when the couple separated.^[1] They had three children: Robert, Lucy, and Timothy.^[1] Hawking married his personal care assistant, Elaine Mason, in 1995; ^[1] the couple divorced In October 2006^[30] amid claims by former nurses that she had abused him.^[31] In 1999, Jane Hawking published a memoir, Music to Move the Stars, detailing the marriage and its breakdown; in 2010 she published a revised version, Travelling to Infinity, My Life with Stephen.^[32]

Hawking supports the children's charity SOS Children's Villages UK^[33] and has stated that his view on how to live life is to "seek the greatest value of our action".^[34] He strongly opposed the Iraq War, calling it "a war crime" and "based on two lies" at a demonstration in Trafalgar Square, where he participated in a public reading of the names of Iraqi war victims.^[35][36]

Hawking has named his secondary school mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta as an inspiration.^[37] He maintains his connection with St Albans School, giving his name to one of the four houses and to an extracurricular science lecture series.^[38]

Illness[link]

Hawking on 5 May 2006, during the press conference at the Bibliothèque nationale de France to inaugurate the Laboratory of Astronomy and Particles in Paris and the French release of his work God Created the Integers

Hawking has a motor neurone disease that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a condition that has progressed over the years. He is now almost completely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device. Hawking's illness has progressed more slowly than typical cases of ALS: survival for more than 10 years after diagnosis is uncommon.^[39][40]

Symptoms of the disorder first appeared while he was enrolled at University of Cambridge; he lost his balance and fell down a flight of stairs, hitting his head.^[4] The diagnosis of motor neurone disease came when Hawking was 21, shortly before his first marriage, and doctors said he would not survive more than two or three years. By 1974, he was unable to feed himself or get out of bed. His speech became slurred so that he could be understood only by people who knew him well. During a visit to CERN in Geneva in 1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia, which in his condition was life-threatening as it further restricted his already limited respiratory capacity. He had an emergency tracheotomy, and as a result lost what remained of his ability to speak.^[41] A speech generating device was built in Cambridge, using software from an American company, that enabled Hawking to write onto a computer with small movements of his body, and then have a voice synthesiser speak what he typed.^[42]

The particular voice synthesiser hardware he uses, which has an American English accent, is no longer being produced. Asked why he has still kept the same voice after so many years, Hawking stated that he has not heard a voice he likes better and that he identifies with it even though the synthesiser is both large and fragile by current standards. Although a mid-2009 corporate press release said that he had chosen NeoSpeech's VoiceText speech synthesiser as his new voice,^[43] a 30 December 2011 interview with Hawking's technician indicates that Hawking is still using an older synthesiser containing a card "which dates back to the 1980s" and that any upgrade would have to be the same voice, otherwise "it wouldn't be Stephen's voice any more".^[44]

For lectures and media appearances, Hawking appears to speak fluently through his synthesiser; however when preparing answers his system produces words at a rate of about one per minute.^[44] Hawking's setup uses a predictive text entry system, which requires only the first few characters in order to auto-complete the word, but as he is only able to use his cheek for data entry, constructing complete sentences takes time.^[44] During a TED Conference talk, it took him seven minutes to provide a brief answer to a question.^[45]

He describes himself as lucky, despite his disease. Its slow progression has allowed him time to make influential discoveries and has not hindered him from having, in his own words, "a very attractive family".^[42]

In popular culture[link]

Hawking in 2007, experiencing weightlessness

Hawking has played himself on numerous television shows and has been portrayed in many more. He has played himself on a Red Dwarf anniversary special, played a hologram of himself on the episode "Descent" of Star Trek: The Next Generation,^[46] and appeared on the Discovery Channel special Alien Planet.^[47] He has also played himself in several episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama, and has had an action figure made of his Simpsons likeness.^[48] The 2004 BBC4 TV film Hawking dealt with his early life and the onset of his illness. He was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch. In 2008, Hawking was the subject of and featured in the documentary series Stephen Hawking, Master of the Universe for Channel 4. In September 2008, Hawking presided over the unveiling of the 'Chronophage' (time-eating) Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College Cambridge.^[49] His actual synthesiser voice was used on parts of the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking" from the 1994 album The Division Bell, as well as on Turbonegro's "Intro: The Party Zone" on their 2005 album Party Animals, Wolfsheim's "Kein Zurück (Oliver Pinelli Mix)". On 5 April 2012 he appeared as a guest star in an episode of The Big Bang Theory.^[50]

Space and spaceflight[link]

At the celebration of his 65th birthday on 8 January 2007, Hawking announced his plan to take a zero-gravity flight that year, with an intention to later take a sub-orbital spaceflight. Billionaire Richard Branson pledged to pay all expenses for a future flight on Virgin Galactic's space service, costing an estimated £100,000.^[51] Stephen Hawking's zero-gravity flight in a "Vomit Comet" of Zero Gravity Corporation, during which he experienced weightlessness eight times, took place on 26 April 2007.^[52] He became the first quadriplegic to float in zero gravity. The fee is normally US$3,750 for 10 to 15 plunges, but Hawking was not required to pay. Hawking was quoted before the flight saying:

Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight. I am doing it for many reasons. First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space.^[53]

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he suggested that space was the Earth's long term hope.^[54] He continued this theme at a 2008 Charlie Rose interview.^[55]

Hawking has indicated that he is almost certain that alien life exists in other parts of the universe, "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like".^[56] He believes alien life not only certainly exists on planets but perhaps even in other places, like within stars or even floating in outer space. He has also warned that a few of these species might be intelligent and threaten Earth.^[57] "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said.^[56] He has advocated that, rather than try to establish contact, humans should try to avoid contact with alien life forms.^[56] At a George Washington University lecture in honour of NASA's fiftieth anniversary, Hawking discussed the existence of extraterrestrial life, believing that "primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare".^[58]

Religious views[link]

In his early work, Hawking spoke of God in a metaphorical sense, such as in A Brief History of Time: "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God."^[59] In the same book he suggested the existence of God was unnecessary to explain the origin of the universe.^[60] In the Channel 4 documentary Genius of Britain, in his 2010 book The Grand Design, and in interviews with the Telegraph, Hawking has clarified that he does not believe in a "personal" God.^[61] Hawking writes, "The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second."^[61] He adds, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing."^[62]

His ex-wife, Jane, has described him as an atheist.^[63] Hawking has stated that he is "not religious in the normal sense" and he believes that "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws."^[64] In an interview published in The Guardian newspaper, Hawking regarded the concept of Heaven as a myth, believing that there is "no heaven or afterlife" and that such a notion was a "fairy story for people afraid of the dark."^[59][65] Hawking contrasted religion and science in 2010, saying: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."^[66]

Philosophical views[link]

At Google’s Zeitgeist Conference in 2011, Hawking said that "philosophy is dead." He believes philosophers "have not kept up with modern developments in science" 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”.^[67]

Publications[link]

Hawking's first popular science book, A Brief History of Time, was published on 1 April 1988. It stayed on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.^[68] A Brief History of Time was followed by The Universe in a Nutshell (2001). A collection of essays titled Black Holes and Baby Universes (1993) was also popular. His book, A Briefer History of Time (2005), co-written by Leonard Mlodinow, updated his earlier works to make them accessible to a wider audience. In 2007 Hawking and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, published George's Secret Key to the Universe, a children's book focusing on science that Lucy Hawking described as "a bit like Harry Potter but without the magic."^[69]

Popular[link]

• A Brief History of Time, (1988)
• Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, (1994)
• The Universe in a Nutshell, (2001)
• On The Shoulders of Giants. The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy, (2002)
• A Briefer History of Time, (2005)
• God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History, (2005)^[70]
• The Grand Design, (2010)^[70]

Children's fiction[link]

These are co-written with his daughter Lucy.

• George's Secret Key to the Universe, (2007)
• George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt, (2009)^[70]
• George and the Big Bang, (2011)

Films and series[link]

• A Brief History of Time (1991)
• Stephen Hawking's Universe (1997)
• Horizon: The Hawking Paradox^[71] (2005)
• Masters of Science Fiction (2007)
• Stephen Hawking: Master of the Universe^[72] (2008)
• Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking^[73] (2010)
• Brave New World with Stephen Hawking

See also[link]

• Many-worlds interpretation, or flexiverse
• Gibbons–Hawking ansatz
• Gibbons–Hawking space

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

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• Stephen Hawking's web site
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Stephen Hawking at the Internet Movie Database
• Stephen Hawking at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Works by or about Stephen Hawking in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Stephen Hawking collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Stephen Hawking collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Archival material relating to Stephen Hawking listed at the UK National Register of Archives
• Portraits of Stephen William Hawking at the National Portrait Gallery, London