On a person who represents the theme “Life is a Challenge, Meet it”
Prof Stephen Hawking
Prof Stephen Hawking is one of the world’s brilliant theoretical physicists. Like other great scientific minds, he has worked on the basic scientific laws that govern the Universe. His work on black holes has especially been path-breaking. His work has resulted in the unification of Einstein’s General Relativity and Quantum Theory, which is a significant development in that field. Some of the conjectures from his work are that black holes are not really black and that the universe has no boundaries.
Sound familiar? Swami is Kalathithaya – beyond space and time and limitless. How then can the universe have boundaries? Science is just the ‘explainable’ component of spirituality.
Stephen Hawking was born in Jan 8, 1942 in Oxford England. You could say the first two decades of his life was fairly uneventful compared to the latter half. In a nutshell
- His first choice, math, was not available, so he took up physics in college.
- He was not a great student, with borderline marks – he needed a makeup oral exam at one point to pass.
- He did not read much and did not take notes either in college.
He started to develop atypical ALS at around age 19. He started off by being increasingly clumsy. ALS is a degenerative motor-neuron disease, where the patient progressively loses neuro-muscular control. Most patients don’t last more than 10 years. He did not know if he would live to finish his PhD.
After an initial bout with depression, he decided “if I was going to die anyway, it might as well do some good”. He went on to finish his PhD in Cosmology, married and got a fellowship at Cambridge.
In a way he says he was fortunate to be in the field of theoretical physics because “ that is all in the mind. No physical ability is required”
It’s been a good 40 years since he was diagnosed!!
Some of his notable achievements in the scientific field
- From 1979- 2009, he has held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University. This is a position held by Isaac Newton.
- He has authored several popular books and TV shows, to make the subject accessible to the layman- A Brief History of time, The Universe in a Nutshell, Black Holes and Baby Universes, Into the Universe etc.
- He has won numerous distinctions and awards all across the world.
In his personal life, his first wife divorced him due to the pressures of his care. He then married his nurse but they too divorced a few years later. He has children and grandchildren.
His condition has affected his physical ability unevenly. Till around 1974, he could take care of himself, after which he needed help from a live in graduate research student. From 1980 he had a system of nurses. In 1985 he had to undergo a tracheotomy operation, after catching pneumonia at the CERN facility in Switzerland. He has needed 24 hr nursing care since, which has been funded by grants.
Even prior to the operation his voice had started slurring. In many of his public speeches prior to 1985, his graduate assistants were interpreting for him.
But after his operation, he lost his voice completely. He had to find a way to communicate. Walt Woltosz offered him a software program called the Equalizer. Words could be selected from menus on screen by pressing a switch. And a sentence was slowly built up. He typed at approximately 4 words a minute this way.
David Mason of Cambridge Adaptive Communication adapted the system to his wheelchair and used the 1980s telephone answering system to convert text to speech. The voice was robotic, with an American accent, but it’s the voice, that Stephen Hawking identifies with, and still uses.
In his words: "A cursor moves across the upper part of the screen. I can stop it by pressing a switch in my hand. This switch is my only interface with the computer. In this way I can select words, which are printed on the lower part of the screen. When I have built up a sentence, I can send it to a speech synthesizer.
I can write equations in words, and the program translates them into symbols.
I can also give lectures. I write the lecture beforehand, and save it on disk. I can then send it to the speech synthesizer, a sentence at a time.”
On TV shows, his voice output appears to be smooth and fluent only because it has been pre-prepared. At live conferences, it can take him up to 7 minutes to answer a question.
Hawking lost the fine motor control of his hand as well and could no longer press the switch. Again the software had to be adapted. A small infrared sensor was attached to his glasses. The sensor detects intentional cheek twitches and triggers the switch.
Using this he selects words, one letter at a time and slowly builds it into a sentence.
Just imagine it - This is the system he has used to write his books, TV shows, give speeches, attend conferences and do his scientific work.
This computer system also allows him access to remote controlling things like music, TV, lights, voice over IP, and opening doors in his house to allow him more independence.
His computer system has to be pretty much be replaced every year and he is fortunate to have the support of tech companies like Intel who are willing to invest in helping him. It has also helped that the onset of his illness came about slowly so he had time to establish his brilliance and intellect instead of trying to prove his cognitive abilities in addition to the struggles to communicate.
Stephen Hawking essentially went beyond the bodily human limitations and reached out into the infinity of space. He even went on a space flight recently and experienced weightlessness. What a relief that must have been – not to be weighed down by the physical body.
What if Stephen Hawking had been born 40 years earlier, when such technology was not available? His mind would be lost to the world - what an incredible loss that would have been. Technology really has been a blessing in disguise for him and many who have no other avenue of communication.
His life was and is still a challenge. Yet he continues to face it and has overcome it in many areas.
Efforts are being made to develop systems that will help him communicate should his face become paralyzed as well. Perhaps one of us will be in this field where we will develop new and affordable technologies that will benefit many people all over the world.
Does not Swami keep telling us that we need not be trapped in the illusion of the insignificant physical body? Seems to me that Stephen Hawking has kind of done that.
I like the answer Stephen Hawking gave on his site: “The human race is so puny compared to the universe that being disabled is not of much cosmic significance.”
Lessons learnt.
Stephen Hawking’s life has been a great source of inspiration to me. Especially the fact that he’s done most of his work at the rate of 4 words per minute. That is the epitome of perseverance and dedication.
I’m sure there is some element of frustration too – I can relate – it’s faster to talk that to type out a thought letter by letter, word by word, sentence by sentence. A mind like his must be churning out thoughts faster than the physical movement of his cheek muscle.
Life is going to be challenging whether or not your physical body imposes limitations. But you can still move beyond and make it less of a limitation. And you have to move others with you and take all to greater heights of human consciousness.
When challenges come your way, hold fast onto Swami’s hand and walk with Him.
Sources:
Official website of Prof Stephen Hawking.
http://www.hawking.org.uk
Saenz, Aaron “How does Stephen Hawking Talk” (5/3/10)
http://singularityhub.com/2010/05/03/how-does-stephen-hawking-talk-video/
