Hawking’s formula goes with him to Abbey grave
IT was his most famous idea and most precious achievement.
So, just as Stephen Hawking wished, his equation – so simple yet so complex – has been etched on his gravestone.
The physicist, who died in March aged 76, was laid to rest at Westminster Abbey yesterday.
His ashes, placed in a small casket, were placed in a grave in Scientists’ Corner, alongside Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.
The stone, made of Caithness slate, was inscribed with the words: ‘Here lies what was mortal of Stephen Hawking 1942-2018.’
In his address at the thanksgiving service, Professor Hawking’s friend Lord Rees, the Astronomer Royal, said: ‘He was elected to the Royal Society when only 32. Within a year he came up with his bestever idea – encapsulated in the equation on his memorial stone. His “eureka moment” revealed the first firm link between the two overarching 20th century theories: the quantum theory, describing the very small, and Einstein’s relativity, describing gravity and the cosmos.
‘He showed that, because of quantum effects, black holes weren’t completely black but emitted what’s now called “Hawking radiation”. This discovery surprised all the experts. Forty years later, its ramifications still, in a colleague’s words, cause more sleepless nights than any physics paper in history.’
Choral music echoed through the grand building as the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend John Hall, presided over the internment. Professor Hawking’s first wife Jane, son Tim and daughter Lucy laid flowers. Famous faces at the service included actress Lily Cole, comedian David Walliams, Professor Brian Cox, and rock stars David Gilmour and Nick Mason from Pink Floyd.
Lord Rees said: ‘Stephen described his own scientific quest as “learning the mind of God”. But this was a metaphor. He shared Darwin’s agnosticism, but it’s fitting that he too should be interred in this shrine. Nobody else since Einstein has done more to deepen our understanding of space, time and gravity.’