Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking

1. He was a Theoretical physicist

   • A branch of physics that includes mathematics to explain and predict natural occurrences
   • Hawking had wanted the film, ‘A Brief History of Time’ to be scientific rather than biographical, but he was persuaded otherwise.
     • He was famous for his discovery that black holes emit radiation which can be detected by special instrumentation
       • Hawkings came up with what became known as the second law of black hole dynamics.
     • He was portrayed by Eddie Redmayne

2. He lost his voice due to a motor neuron disease and fell into depression

   • He was diagnosed with ALS in his early twenties. This rare disease leads to gradual decline of the brain's ability to control muscles.

3. He was born into a family of doctors

   • Timothy Hawking (his son)
     • A languages graduate
       • He worked in marketing for toy giants Lego.
   • Lucy Hawking (his daughter)
     • A journalist turned author and writer for childrens books
     • All of Lucy's children's books and articles centre around the theme of teaching science
     • She studied French and Russian
   • Robert Hawking (his son)
     • A software engineer for Microsoft in America
     • He is married with two children
   • Jane Wilde (first wife)
     • mother to his three children
       • They were married for 30 years before they divorced in 1995
         • Gained her own PhD in medieval Spanish poetry
           • They divorced Jane became an author and later remarried to Jonathan Hellyer Jones
   • Elaine Mason (second wife)
     • She worked as Prof Hawking's nurse and caregiver
       • She was married to David Mason
         • Elaine left David and their two sons after 15 years of marriage
   • His grandmother saved his family from financial ruin by creating a school in their home