Stephen
Saint Stephen (detail) by Giacomo Cavedone Saint Stephen was the first saint in the Catholic church.
Gender	Male
Origin
Word/Name	Greek
Meaning	Wreath, Crown, Honour, Reward
Other names
Nickname(s)	Steve, Stevie
Derived	Στέφανος (Stephanos)

Look up Stephen in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Stephen or Steven ( /ˈstiːvən/) is a masculine first name, derived from the Greek name Στέφανος (Stephanos) meaning "crown, garland", in turn from the Greek word "στέφανος", meaning "wreath, crown, honour, reward", literally "that which surrounds or encompasses".^[1][2] In ancient Greece, a wreath was given to the winner of a contest (from which the crown, symbol of rulers derived). The use of the noun was first recorded in Homer's Iliad.^[3] The name is significant to Christians: according to the Book of Acts in the New Testament, Saint Stephen was a deacon who was stoned to death and is regarded as the first Christian martyr. The name has many variants, which include Stephan, Stevan, Stefan and Stevon.

In Middle English, the name Stephen or Stephan was pronounced as a bi-syllabic word — Step-hen or Step-han — much like a Scandinavian surname. Steve was pronounced as it is in Modern English. This etymological usage began a decline in the mid-19th century.

Steve is the common short form, while various diminutives such as Stevie are also used. Many family names are derived from Stephen: the most common are Stephens/Stevens and Stephenson/Stevenson (others include Stephen, Stephan, Staphan, Stefan, Stevin and Stever).

The name was ranked 201 in the United States in 2009, according to the Social Security Administration.^[4] The name reached its peak popularity in 1951 but remained very common through the mid 1990s, when popularity started to decrease in the United States^[5]

In the United Kingdom, it peaked during the 1950s and 1960s as one of the top ten male first names (ranking third in 1954) but had fallen to twentieth by 1984 and had fallen out of the top one hundred by 2002.^[6]

The female version of the name is Stephanie.

For Stephen as a surname see Stephen (surname), Stephenson and Stevenson.

List of alternatives[link]

• Estevan (old Spanish)
• Esteban (Spanish, Filipino, Basque)
• Estebe (Basque)
• Estêvão, Stefen (Portuguese)
• Esteve (Catalan)
• Estevo (Galician)
• Étienne ("Estienne" is an obsolete spelling), Stéphane (French)
• Êtiên (Vietnamese)
• İstefanos, Stefan (Turkish)
• İstfan, Stepan (Azeri)
• István (Hungarian)
• Kepano, Kiwini (Hawaiian)
• Shtjefën or Stefan (Albanian language)
• Sitiveni (Tongan, Fijian)
• Staffan, Stefan (Swedish)
• Steafán, Stiofán (Irish)
• Stefán (Icelandic)
• Stefano (Esperanto)
• Stefano (Italian)
• Ștefan (Romanian)
• Štefan (Slovak)
• Štefan (Slovene)
• Stefan, Stefaan, Stefanus, Steven, Stephan (Afrikaans, Dutch)
• Stefan, Stephan, Steffen (German)
• Ephenstay, (Pig Latin)(Unofficial)
• Stefan, Szczepan (Polish)
• Steffan, Stifyn, Stîfyn (Welsh)
• Steffen (Norwegian)
• Steffen, Stephen, Stefan, Stephan (Danish)
• Štěpán (Czech)
• Stefanus, Stephanus (Latin)
• Stepans, Stepons (Latvian)
• Steponas, Stepas (Lithuanian)
• Steven (Breton)
• Stiefnu (Maltese)
• スティーブン、スティーブ、スティーヴン (Stiibun, Stiibu, Stiivun; Japanese)
• Stìobhan, Stìophan, Stèaphan (Scottish Gaelic)
• Stjepan, Stipan, Stipe, Stipo, Štef (Croatian)
• Tapani, Teppana (Finnish)
• Tehvan (Estonian)
• Tipene (Māori)
• Istfanous, إستفانوس, ستيف, ستيفن (Arabic)
• סטיבן (Stiven; Hebrew)
• Στέφανος (Stephanos, Stefanos, Greek)
• Степан, Стефан (Stepan, Stefan, Ukrainian; Стефан [Stefan] is a more western Ukrainian usage^{[citation needed]})
• Стефан (Stefan), diminutive: Стефчо (Stefcho), (Bulgarian)
• Стефан/Stefan, Стеван/Stevan, Степан/Stepan, Шћепан/Šćepan, Стијепо/Stijepo, Стево/Stevo (Serbian)
• Стефан/Stefan, Стеван/Stevan, Шћепан/Šćepan (Montenegrin)
• Стефан/Stefan, Стеван/Stevan, Стево/Stevo, Стефче/Stefche (Macedonian)
• Степан (Stepan, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian)
• Ստեփանոս, Ստեփան (Stepanos, Stepan, Armenian)
• სტეფანე (Stepane, Georgian)
• ஸ்டீபன் (Sṭīpan, Tamil)
• Eapen (Malayalam)
• Steephan (South Indian)
• Steeve or Styve (Québec)

Notable people known by the name Stephen[link]

Note: to find people with the given name Stephen who are also known by another name, see All pages beginning with "Stephen".

Saints[link]

• Saint Stephen (died c. 35), the first martyr (Protomartyr) of the Christian church
• St. Stephen of Sugdaea, also on Bravlin
• Stephen, one of the pair of Christian saints and martyrs Socrates and Stephen
• Stephen the Younger (ca. 715–765), Byzantine iconodule martyr
• Stephen I of Hungary (c. 965–1038), canonized in 1083
• Stephen of Obazine (1085–1154), Cistercian, first Abbot of Obazine Abbey, France
• Stephen Harding (died 1134), English, one of the founders of the Cistercian Order
• Stephen III of Moldavia or Stephen the Great and Holy (c.1432–1504), son of Bogdan II
• Stephen Theodore Cuenot, a bishop from France, see Vietnamese Martyrs
• Stephen Vinh, also of the Vietnamese Martyrs

Royalty[link]

• Stephen of Armenia (died 1165), marshal, son of Leo I
• Stephen of England or Stephen of Blois (c.1096–1154), grandson of William the Conqueror
• Stephen I of Hungary (c. 965–1038), Grand Prince of the Magyars, first king of Hungary
• Stephen II of Hungary (1101–1131), elder son of King Coloman
• Stephen III of Hungary (1147–1172), eldest son of King Geza II
• Stephen IV of Hungary (c.1133–1165), third son of King Béla II
• Stephen V of Hungary (1239–1272), elder son of King Béla IV
• Stephen I of Moldavia (1394–1399), son of Costea
• Stephen II of Moldavia (died 1447), prince, son of Alexandru cel Bun
• Stephen III of Moldavia or Stephen the Great and Holy (c.1432–1504), son of Bogdan II
• Stephen Báthory of Poland (1533–1586), prince of Transylvania, king consort of Poland, grand duke consort of Lithuania
• Stefan Nemanja or Stefan I, Nemanja (c.1109–1199), grand prince of Serb state of Raška
• Stefan Nemanjić or Stefan II, Nemanja (1176–1228), proclaimed king of Serbia in 1217
• Stefan Radoslav of Serbia (c.1192-c.1235), king of Serbia, son of Nemanjić
• Stefan Vladislav I of Serbia (died after 1264), son of Stefan Nemanjić
• Stephen Uroš I of Serbia (died 1277), son of Stefan Nemanjić
• Stefan Dragutin (died 1316), son of Stefan Uroš I
• Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia (1282–1321)
• Stefan Vladislav II of Syrmia (1321-c.1325)
• Stefan Uroš III Dečanski of Serbia (1321–1331)
• Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia (Dušan the Mighty) (1331–1355), king 1331–1346; tsar 1346–1355
• Stefan Uroš V of Serbia (Uroš the Weak) (1355–1371), tsar
• Stefan Lazarević (1374–1427), Serbian despot
• Stefan I Crnojević (1426–1465), lord of Zeta (Montenegro) 1451–1465
• Stefan II Crnojević, lord of Zeta (Montenegro) 1496–1498
• Stjepan Držislav of Croatia (died 997), king 969–997
• Stjepan I of Croatia (died 1058), king 1030-1058
• Stjepan II of Croatia (died 1091), king 1089–1091, last member of the Trpimirović dynasty
• Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria (died after 1343), tsar 1330–1331

Church figures (Stephen or Stephanus)[link]

• Pope Stephen I (died 257), Bishop of Rome from 254–257
• Pope-elect Stephen (died 752), elected Pope but died before being ordained
• Pope Stephen II (died 757), pope from 752–757
• Pope Stephen III (720–772), pope from 768–772
• Pope Stephen IV (died 817), pope from 816–817
• Pope Stephen V (died 891), pope from 885–891
• Pope Stephen VI (died 897), pope from 896–897
• Pope Stephen VII (died 931), pope from 929–931
• Pope Stephen VIII (died 942), German, pope from 939–942
• Pope Stephen IX (c. 1020–1058), pope from 1057–1058
• Esteban, bishop of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Zaragoza, Spain, from 1128 to 1130
• Ecumenical Patriarch Stephen I of Constantinople (867–893), patriarch from 886 to 893
• Ecumenical Patriarch Stephen II of Constantinople, from Amasea, patriarch from 925 to 928
• Stephanus I, Archbishop of Aquileia, Italy, c. 515
• Stephanus II, Patriarch of Grado, Italy, c. 670
• Stefan (Archbishop of Uppsala), Sweden, (before 1150–1185), first archbishop from 1164 to 1185

Other[link]

• Stephen F. Austin (1793–1836), Empresario that settled Texas
• Stephen Baldwin (born 1966), American actor
• Steven Ballmer (born 1956), CEO of Microsoft
• Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943), American author
• Steven Best (born 1955), American activist and presenter
• Steven Francis "Steve" Cantwell (born 1986), American mixed martial arts fighter
• Stephen Chow (born 1962), Hong Kong actor, comedian and director
• Stephen Cochran (born 1979), American Country music singer/songwriter
• Stephen Colbert (born 1964), American political satirist, comedian, and television host
• Stephen Corry, Director of the British indigenous rights organisation Survival International
• Stephen Crane (1871–1900), American novelist and journalist
• Stephen Farrelly (born 1978), Irish professional wrestler and actor.Sheamus
• Stephen Foster (1826–1864), known as the "Father of American music"
• Stephen Fry (born 1957), British actor, comedian, television presenter
• Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), American paleontologist/biologist
• Stephen Victor Graham, 18th Governor of American Samoa
• Stephen Harper (born 1959), Canadian Prime Minister
• Stephen Hawking (born 1942), British theoretical physicist
• Stephen Hawkins (born 1971), Australian rower
• Stephen Hendry (born 1969), British snooker player
• Steven Herzberg, English-born Australian cricketer
• Stephen Kenyon (born 1951), English long-distance runner
• Stephen King (born 1947), American horror fiction and screenplay writer
• Stephen Maguire (born 1981), British snooker player
• Stephen Malkmus (born 1966), indie rock musician
• Stephen Merchant (born 1974), British writer, director, radio presenter, and actor
• Stephen Milligan (1948–1994), British politician and journalist
• Stephen Campbell Moore (born 1979), British actor
• Stephen Morris (born 1957), British drummer and musician
• Stephen Sackur (born 1964), British BBC journalist
• Stephen Timms (born 1955), British politician
• Stephen Wallem (born 1968), American theater/television actor and singer
• Steve Case, founder of America Online
• Steve Davis (born 1957), British snooker player
• Steve Dubinsky (born 1970), Canadian NHL center
• Steve Dublanica (born 1968), American author and blogger.
• Steve Irwin (1962–2006), Australian TV personality, nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter"
• Steve Jobs (1955-2011), American co-founder of Apple Inc
• Steve Stone (disambiguation)
• Steve Wozniak (born 1950), American co-founder of Apple Inc
• Steve Yeager (born 1948), American major league baseball catcher
• Steve McQueen (1930–1980), American actor
• Steven Gerrard (born 1980), English footballer
• Steven Herzberg (born 1957), English-born Australian cricketer
• Steven Seagal (born 1952), American actor
• Steven Shields (born 1972), Canadian NHL goalie
• Steven Spielberg (born 1946), American film director
• Steven Tyler (born 1948), American singer songwriter and Aerosmith frontman
• Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954–1990), American guitarist, singer and songwriter
• Steven Parris Ward (born 1963), English poet and philosopher
• Steve "Boomstick" Wilson, current drummer of T.A.T.u. and former drummer of Dead Kennedys and Against All Will
• Stevie Wonder (born 1950), American multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter
• Stephanus of Byzantium, 6th century author of Ethnica, a geographical dictionary
• Stephanus Med., 7th century physician (see List of ancient European doctors)
• Stephanus, Phil, 7th century physician (see List of ancient European doctors)
• Stephanus, pupil of Pasiteles (fl. 33 BCE) sculptor in the time of Caesar Augustus
• Stefan Mappus (born 1966), German politician

Fiction[link]

• Steven Hyde, a character on the TV show That 70s Show
• Steven Freeling, a character in the first two Poltergeist films from the 1980s
• Steve McDonald, a character from popular English Soap Opera Coronation Street
• Stefan Salvatore, a character on the TV show The Vampire Diaries based on the novel of the same name
• Steve Urkel or Stefan Urquelle, a character on the TV show Family Matters
• Stephen Wilkins, a character in the movie Trick 'r Treat

Popularity[link]

The spelling "Stephen" reached its peak of popularity in the United States in the period 1949–1951, when it was the 19th most popular name for newborn boys. It stayed in the top 100 boys' names from 1936 through 2000, and for most years between 1897 and 1921. In 2008 it was the 192nd most common name for boys.^[7]

The spelling "Steven" reached its peak of popularity in the United States in the period 1955–1961, when it was the 10th most popular name for newborn boys. It stayed in the top 100 boys' names from 1941 through 2007. In 2008 it was the 104th most popular name for boys. Before the 20th century, the "Steven" spelling was heavily outweighed by "Stephen", never reaching above 391st.^[7]

In England and Wales, neither "Stephen" nor "Steven" was among the top 100 names for newborn boys in 2003–2007.^[8] In Scotland, "Steven" and "Stephen" were the 8th and 10th most popular names for newborn boys in 1975, but were not in the top ten in 1900, 1950 or 2000.^[9] "Stephen" was 68th in 1900,^[10] and 46th in 1950,^[11] while "Steven" was not in the top 100 either year. Neither spelling was in the top 100 names for newborn boys in Scotland in 2008.^[12] Neither "Stephen" nor "Steven" was among top 25 most popular baby boys' names in Ireland in 2006 or 2007.^[13]

References[link]

This page or section lists people that share the same given name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article.

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