Great Scientists of the World : Stephen Hawking

By Savneet kaur

This Biography Series narrates the life stories of the great scientists and about their inventions. These books inspire & motivate children and enhance their knowledge and vocabulary skills as well.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diamond Books
• Release date: Sep 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9789355990389

Book preview

Preface

Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford on 8th January 1942. His parents, Frank and Isobel, attended Oxford University and worked in medical research. They placed a strong emphasis on the importance of education. In 1950, the family moved to St Alban’s in Hertfordshire, where they were viewed as being rather eccentric. Stephen attended St Albans School and had a close group of friends with whom he enjoyed playing board games, making fireworks, model airplanes and boats. Hawking was given the nickname ‘Einstein’ while at school but was not always successful in his studies.

Stephen William Hawking (1942-2018), theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author, gives his name to Hawking House at The John Warner School. He was the most recognisable scientist of our age, and holds an iconic image. His book, ‘A Brief History of Time’ has been translated into 35 different languages, he appeared in TV dramas (The Simpsons, Star Trek, The Big Bang Theory) and was asked for his views on a whole range of scientific as well as social and political issues. Despite his illness he led a complete life, inspiring generations of students to study the problems of gravity and quantum physics. Beyond the scientific world, he inspired curiosity, knowledge, and wisdom.

The film’s title was a nod to his scientific life. Hawking spent years looking for a single theory that describes our Universe. And despite debilitating illness, he was one of science’s great popularisers, conveying his ideas to millions.

Hawking used his intellect and wit to open up the complex world of quantum physics to as wide an audience as possible. The questions that he raised, theories he developed, and controversies he provoked have advanced scientific knowledge and awareness more than many others.

-Author

Stephen Hawking

[1942 - 2018]

In an upscale restaurant near Cambridge city centre, twelve young men and women sit around a large, linen-covered table with plates and dishes, glasses, and cutlery. To one side is a man in a wheelchair. He is older than the others. He looks frail, almost withered away to nothing, slumped motionlessly and seemingly lifeless against the black cloth cushion of his wheelchair. His hands, thin and pale, the fingers slender, lie in his lap. Set into the center of his sinewy throat, just below the collar of his open-necked shirt, is a plastic breathing device about two inches in diameter. But despite his disabilities, his face is alive and boyish, neatly brushed brown hair falling across his brow, only the lines beneath his eyes belying that he is a contemporary of Keith Richards and Donald Trump. His head lolls forward, but from behind steel-rimmed spectacles, his clear blue eyes are alert, raised slightly to survey the other faces around him. Beside him sits a nurse, her chair angled toward his as she positions a spoon to his lips and feeds him. Occasionally she wipes his mouth.

There is an air of excitement in the restaurant. Around this man, the young people laugh and joke and occasionally address him or make a flippant remark in his direction. A moment later, the babble of human voices is cut through by a rasping sound, a metallic voice, like something from the set of Star Wars—the man in the wheelchair makes a response which brings peals of laughter from the whole table. His eyes light up, and what has been described by some as the greatest smile in the world envelops his whole face. Suddenly you know that this man is very much alive.

This person is none other than the greatest scientist Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking was born on 8th January 1942 in Oxford even though his parents were living in London. The eldest of Frank and Isobel Hawking’s four children, Stephen William Hawking, was born on the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo—long a source of pride for the noted physicist. He was born in Oxford, England, into a family of thinkers. His Scottish mother, Isobel Hawking, had earned her way into Oxford University in the 1930s—a time when few women thought of going to the college—making her one of the college’s first female students. His father, Frank Hawking, another Oxford graduate, was a respected medical researcher specialising in tropical diseases, philosophy, politics and economics. The two met shortly after the beginning f the Second World War at a medical research institute where she was working as a secretary and he as a medical researcher. They lived in Highgate, but as London was under attack in those years, his mother went to Oxford to give birth in greater safety.

Parents Frank and Isobel Hawking

Stephen Hawking brothers and sisters

Hawking was eight when the family arrived there. Frank Hawking had a strong desire to send Stephen to a private school. He had always believed that a private school education was an essential ingredient for a successful career. There was plenty of evidence to support this view: in the 1950s, the vast majority of members of Parliament had enjoyed a privileged education, and most senior figures in institutions such as the BBC, the armed forces, and the country’s universities had been to private schools. Dr. Hawking himself had attended a minor private school, and he felt that even with this semi-elite background, he had still experienced the prejudice of the establishment. He was convinced that, coupled with his own parents’ lack of money, this had held him back from achieving greater things in his own career and that others with less ability but more refined social mores had been promoted ahead of him. He did not want this to happen to his eldest son. Stephen, he decided, would be sent to Westminster, one of the best schools in the country.

When he was ten, the boy was entered for the Westminster School scholarship examination. Although his father was doing well in medical research, a scientist’s salary could never hope to cover the school fees at Westminster—such things were reserved for the likes of admirals, politicians, and captains of industry. Stephen had to be accepted into the school on his academic merit; he