HAWKING’S LAST HURRAH
The world famous physicist and author of A Brief History Of Time is laid to rest alongside Newton and Darwin
“ONE OF THE GREAT REVELATIONS OF THE SPACE AGE HAS BEEN A PERSPECTIVE IT HAS GIVEN HUMANITY ON OURSELVES”
No one since Einstein has done more to deepen our knowledge of the cosmos and inspire achievement against the odds.” Those were the words Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, used to describe his friend, colleague and fellow scientist Prof Stephen Hawking at his memorial service on Friday 15 June. Hawking, the physicist renowned for unravelling the mysteries of black holes and his distinctive synthesised voice, was laid to rest in a special ceremony held at Westminster Abbey in London.
Before his death on 14 March 2018, aged 76, Hawking had garnered an unprecedented level of global recognition for his scientific discoveries and ability to popularise them. But his achievements were perhaps all the more notable since they came in the face of an almost lifelong struggle with motor neurone disease – a degenerative condition that robbed Hawking of his ability to walk and talk.
Often characterised as a man whose body was trapped in a wheelchair but whose mind was free to wander among the stars, his final farewell reflected the contrasting nature of Hawking’s existence. As his ashes were interred in the ground of Westminster Abbey between those of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, an audio recording of Hawking reading a tribute, set to music by the composer Vangelis, was beamed into space towards 1A 0620-00 – the nearest black hole to Earth.
While his funeral, held on 31 March, was an understandably solemn affair, the memorial service was a colourful celebration of Hawking’s life and work. It began with Westminster Abbey’s organist playing Venus, The Bringer Of Peace from Holst’s The Planets, and was later brought to a close with Wagner’s Ride Of The Valkyries.
Leading the ceremony was the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, who used his opening bidding to allude to the dilemma of remembering, celebrating and burying a scientist in a place of religious worship.
“We come to celebrate the life and achievements of Stephen Hawking in this holy place where God has been worshipped for over a thousand years, and where kings and queens and the great men and women of our national history and international influence are memorialised.”
Rees also attempted to answer the questions raised by the occasion in his address, pointing out that although the physicist shared an agnosticism similar to that of Darwin’s, Hawking himself described his scientific quest as a mission “to learn the mind of God.”
But it was Hawking’s friend, the physicist and Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, who perhaps provided the best solution while speaking at the ceremony: “[Stephen] earned a special place in the hearts of admirers worldwide and a special place in Westminster Abbey, beside Isaac Newton.”
Thorne also described Hawking as “the most stubborn friend I had. He absolutely refused to let his condition get in the way of doing great work and having great fun… He was someone whose love for life was legendary and whose courage and creativity were inspirational.”
While Hawking’s scientific insights earned him respect, and his perseverance in the face of physical adversity won him admiration, it was perhaps his mischievous sense of fun that helped him become such a popular figure all around the world.
The many people that came to his memorial service from all walks of life were testament to that. As well as his family and friends, Westminster Abbey was filled with fellow eminent scientists, the astronauts Colonel Chris Hadfield and Major Tim Peake, the actor Benedict Cumberbatch and hundreds of schoolchildren. People with motor
neurone disease and other conditions that confined them to wheelchairs also came, as did a Marilyn Monroe lookalike (Hawking was reputedly a big fan of the Hollywood star). But as far as anyone is aware, no time travellers were present, despite there being an open invitation to anyone from the future with the capability to attend.
While his crowning scientific achievement may have been the discovery of Hawking radiation, it was his ability to build bridges that is perhaps his greatest legacy – bridges between Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and quantum theory, bridges between academia and the general pubic, bridges between scientific insight and social responsibility and, once again, as his tribute message was beamed out into the stars, a bridge between Earth and space.
As Thorne said in his address, “We remember Newton for the answers he gave us. We remember Hawking for the questions with which he challenged us.”
It was perhaps fitting then that Hawking used his final tribute to pose some of the biggest questions, while also hinting at how we might find an answer: “How will we feed an ever-growing population, provide clean water, generate renewable energy, prevent and cure disease and slow down global climate change? I hope that science and technology will provide the answers to these questions but it will take people, human beings with knowledge and understanding, to implement the solution. One of the great revelations of the space age has been a perspective it has given humanity on ourselves.”