Press Officers, Michaelmas 2017

Jade CharlesGideon Benedyk

Press Officers, Michaelmas 2017

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Cambridge, 27 September 2018

Press Release:21st November 2017

STEPHEN HAWKING

Professor Stephen Hawking opened by saying that he is pleased to here on this special occasion on the announcement of thee Hawking Fellowship for which he will be the recipient. He looks forward to the future recipients. This has put him in a reflective mood and he will discuss how the state of the universe has changed over his lifetime. He explains he was born in 1942, 300 years after the death of Galileo but 200,000 babies were also probably born on this day. He was born in Oxford and the German’s agreed not to bomb Oxford or Cambridge. Its as shame that this arrangement couldn’t have extended to other cities. They lived in a house in Highgate which his parents bought cheaply as people feared London would be bombed. He played with his friend Howard who went to a council school, played football and his parents were not intellectuals.

He learnt to read at a very late age of read but his sister was taught conventionally and was brighter than him, he jokes. He said when they moved to St Albans, they were seen as eccentric. He had 6 or 7 close school friends, most of whom he is still in touch with and engaged in discussions about the origin of the universe, religion and science. His father was very keen that he go to Oxford or Cambridge. His father wanted him to apply to University College, Oxford but they had no mathematics scholar so he applied for natural sciences. ‘I surprised myself by being successful.’ He added that, ‘At Oxford you were supposed to be brilliant without effort or accept your limitations and get a 4th class degree. The course I did made it easy to avoid work. I calculated that I did about an hour of work a day. I am not proud of this. I am just describing my attitude at the time.’ He says that his illness has changed this. ‘when faced with the possibility of an early death you realise that life is worth living and there is lots that you want to do.’ He jokes that he enjoys Quantam physics as he avoids questions that require factual knowledge.

Stephen admits that he was borderline first and second degree and had to be interviewed to determine the result. He said if they gave him a first, he would go to Cambridge, if he only got a second, he would stay at Oxford. ‘They gave me a first.’ He was given travel grants during his vacation and set off to Iran.

He arrived back in Cambridge where he had applied to work with Fred Boyle, the most famous astronomer of the time. However, he was assigned to Dennis Sciama of whom he had not heard of. This was lucky as he would have otherwise be doing a test harder than negotiating Brexit! He was determined to do cosmology as it was a neglected field and required developments.

The first Christmas in Cambridge, he went home and skated on the lake. He fell over and had difficulty getting up again. His mother took him to the doctor where he had many tests but they never told him what was wrong but he guessed enough to know it was really bad so didn’t ask. The doctor felt there was nothing that could be done so he turned to his father for advice. He became depressed as he was getting worse rapidly and there was no point working on his PHD as he may not have lived long enough to finish it. After his expectations were reduced to zero every new day became a bonus. ‘Where there is life, there is hope.’ He got engaged which lifted his spirits. He worked hard to finish his PHD and get married.

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