Speaker John Waterhouse - Stephen Hawking

John took us on a quick journey through the life of Stephen Hawking from his birth on 8 January 1942 to his death on 14 March 2018.

Although known at school as "Einstein", Hawking was not initially successful academically. However he eventually showed an aptitude for science and at the age of 17 gained a scholarship to University College Oxford. Despite only putting in 1,000 hours work over the 3 years of his undergraduate degree Hawking achieved a first class homours degree which allowed him to study cosmology at the University of Cambridge where he received a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge; he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology, in March 1966. It was during this time that he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease

Hawking joined with Roger Penrose to extend the singularity theorem concepts that he first explored in his doctoral thesis. This included not only the existence of singularities but also the theory that the universe might have started as a singularity. This work led him on to the proposal that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics and was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

 He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009 and achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

As well as being a brilliant scientist he was also a man who was quick to humour as witnessed by his willingness to join in a sketch with David Walliams, appear in Star Trek and allow his voice synthesizer to be used on both The Simpsons and the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking".