A physicist rolls into a bar . . .
Being confined to a wheelchair didn’t stop Stephen Hawking from taking science lovers along for the ride, writes Lawrence M. Krauss Hawking’s voice was his tool and his trademark
I’ll never forget the first time I realised how deeply Stephen Hawking had affected people around the world: It was in the late 1980s, shortly after his bestseller, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, was published, and we were in Aspen, Colorado, for a gathering of physicists.
I told him about a place I knew that was, at the time, a kind of cowboy bar in Woody Creek, a small town nearby but culturally far removed — a place where Hunter Thompson used to hang out. I asked Stephen if he wanted to stop by and, ever the adventurer, he said yes.
I called the bar and asked if it was wheelchair-accessible, was told it was, and off we went.
Thirty minutes later we arrived, got out of Stephen’s van and went inside.
The bar was rustic, with a pool table in the back and several tables up front. The bartender looked up at us and immediately exclaimed, “Well, if you had told me it was Stephen Hawking coming, we would have built a ramp if necessary!”
Until then, short of coming in with Albert Einstein, I would have been reasonably certain that no other scientist in the world, even Carl Sagan at the height of his fame, would have been so instantly recognisable. Thirty years later, it makes complete sense. Stephen’s mega-stardom only continued to rise. But in 1988, before his book appeared, it was almost unfathomable that a physicist could be so widely recognised, admired or sought after.
Stephen’s science was certainly one reason for his popularity. Working in the same area as Einstein, Stephen had, in many senses, revitalised interest in the general theory of relativity among many physicists by directly confronting what has become the most vexing outstanding problem in theoretical particle physics: how to make two of the towering achievements of 20th century physics — general relativity and the quantum mechanics theory — consistent with each other. Stephen’s discovery, known as Hawking radiation, held that quantum effects around black holes could cause them to radiate particles, and presents a challenge to classical theoretical physics, which had traditionally held that nothing can escape a black hole. This new phenomenon has implications that, so far, no one has been able to fully address.
Fascinating as that is, that is not what electrified the public. Stephen did. The image of a man confined in a wheelchair, whose mind could roam the mysteries of the universe, was so compelling that the image on the cover of his book made it irresistible to millions.
Even among his admirers, those who didn’t know him personally had little idea just how extraordinary a human being he was. To start, it’s easy to forget just how difficult every single day was for him. Things most of us take for granted — breathing, talking, eating — Stephen had to work at. That he was able to face each morning with the determination to take everything he could from life and make an enduring impact took courage, determination and, yes, even stubbornness, beyond most people’s reach. In the best way, he was too stubborn to let the world interfere with the things he wanted to accomplish.
He also was funny. He could look at his own circumstances, and those of the world around him, with sufficient appreciation for the cosmic absurdity of our existence, so that he didn’t view himself as a victim, but rather an active participant in a universe that doesn’t care if we are happy, fulfilled or healthy.
He could look at his own circumstances, and those of the world around him, with sufficient appreciation for the cosmic absurdity of our existence, so that he didn’t view himself as a victim, but rather an active participant in a universe that doesn’t care if we are happy, fulfilled or healthy.
He’d be damned if he wasn’t going to get everything out of life, including the life of the mind, that he could, no matter what. It made him a pleasure to be around.
I like to tell jokes, and watching the twinkle in his eye when I told one he enjoyed made the awkwardness that inevitably accompanied any long conversation — there could be, at times, five-minute silences while he composed his thoughts on his computer — not just tolerable, but enjoyable.
His playfulness infused his writing, as well. When he agreed to write the foreword for my book, The Physics of Star Trek, I didn’t know what to expect. What I got was a delightful mix of serious discussion of the importance of imagination in both science and science fiction, and a wonderful story about his pokerplaying scene with Einstein, Isaac Newton and Data on the USS Enterprise — a game he won on the show, but one for which he was never able to collect his winnings.
Stephen pushed every boundary he confronted, in science and in life. He enjoyed breaking the rules, in part because he knew he could.
One time when I was lecturing at Cambridge, I had to dress up for a fancy official dinner, and Stephen saw me in my formal get-up. The next day I was giving a seminar, missed my train, and arrived on campus just in time, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. That day, when Stephen saw me, he invited me to join him at high table at his college. I told him I wasn’t appropriately dressed, but he said, with a twinkle in his eye: “It’s okay. You’re with me.” That night, when I arrived at his college, an attendant took one look at me and wasn’t going to let me in. Until Stephen arrived, that is. Throughout the dinner, with the rest of the guests in suits, and the students in robes, I know Stephen got a kick out of both the inappropriateness of my attire, and that fact that we both knew how awkward we were supposed to feel.
When Stephen was determined to do something, it was difficult for anyone or anything to get in the way. More than once, trying to get from point A to point B, he’d simply turn his wheelchair into traffic, daring motorists to hit him. When he wanted to ride Nasa’s “vomit comet” to experience the sensation of weightlessness, it required that not only Stephen but also his caregivers go aboard — which meant a lot of nauseous people on the flight.
Stephen’s fearlessness, combined with his charming impertinence, was vital to his success as a scientist, and as an individual. Despite the difficulties, he travelled the world more than most of my colleagues, and I can’t recall a time when he said no to trying something new: He once agreed to be tied to a gurney and then slide down the entryway to a Stephen Hawking’s computergenerated voice was known to millions of people around the world, a robotic drawl that somehow enhanced the profound impact of the cosmological secrets he revealed.
The technology behind his means of communication was upgraded through the years, offering him the chance to sound less like a machine, but he insisted on sticking to the original voice because it had effectively become his own.
The renowned theoretical physicist lost his ability to speak more than three decades ago after a tracheotomy linked to complications in the motor neurone disease he was diagnosed with at the age of 21.
He later told the BBC he had considered committing suicide by not breathing after the operation, but he said the “reflex to breathe was too strong”.
Hawking started to communicate again using his eyebrows to indicate letters on a spelling card.
His Cambridge University colleague Martin King contacted United States company Words Plus, which had developed a program to allow a user to select words using a hand clicker, according to a 2014 report in Wired magazine.
It was linked to an early speech synthesiser, which turned Hawking’s text into spoken language.
In 1997, PC chipmaker Intel Corp stepped in to improve Hawking’s computer-based communication system, and in 2014 it upgraded the technology to make it faster and easier for Hawking to communicate.
It used algorithms developed by SwiftKey, a British software company acquired by Microsoft, best known for its predictive text technology used in smartphones.
Senior software engineer Joe Osborne said he soon realised the impact SwiftKey’s natural language and artificial intelligence technology could have on Hawking’s communication.
submarine so that he could go beneath the surface for his first time to view the ocean floor.
From the bottom of the ocean to the edge of space, Stephen forced his body to accompany him. His mind knew no limits.
Throughout his career, he addressed truly fundamental questions about the cosmos, helping spur many of the rest of us to join him on the journey.
Leading by example, he encouraged us not to fear an uncertain future, nor the unknown mysteries of existence.
“It was always hard not to have a hero-complex when you start working with someone like that,” he said this week.
“He was a pretty witty guy, there were jokes aplenty. But with his background we could talk about some of the mathematical models that sit under it.”
He said Hawking was certainly not SwiftKey’s usual user.
“You realise how much of a lifeline communication is when you spent time with him,” he said.
Hawking provided lectures and other texts to help the algorithm learn his language, and it could predict the word he wanted to use by just inputting 10-15 per cent of the letters.
But despite the upgrades to the software, one thing remained constant: the voice itself.
Hawking stuck with the sound produced by his first speech synthesiser, made in 1986.
It helped cement his place in popular culture.
It was used in episodes of The Simpsons and Futurama , in Star Trek: The Next Generation, when Hawking appeared as a hologram, and was sampled by Pink Floyd for their track Keep Talking on the 1994 The Division Bell album.
Hawking said on his website that the robotic-sounding voice had been “described variously as Scandinavian, American or Scottish”.
“I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it,” he said in 2006.
We are poorer for his absence, but the memory of this remarkable man enriches us all. Lawrence M. Krauss is a theoretical physicist, a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, and director of the Origins Project, at Arizona State University. He is the author of A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing The Greatest Story Ever Told . . . So Far: Why Are We Here?