Stephen Hawking: The Greatest Scientist of Our Time

his computer-generated voice has become familiar to generations of people instantly garnering recognition as the words of a genius his name is uttered in the same breath as Einstein and Galileo and yet few people can understand the complexities of his theories what they do know though is that Stephen Hawking overcame physical obstacles that would have defeated many people and he did that in order to pursue his passions in the process he became an inspiration to millions and added greatly to our understanding of the universe in this week's by graphics we undertake a brief history of Stephen Hawking and just before you get started with the video today do you want to say that it's brought to you by the great courses plus the rate courses classes and on-demand video learning services got lectures from top Ivy League professors as well as experts from other places like the Smithsonian National Geographic etc it's like a university education but at your own pace there are no tests no schedules and it's incredibly easy to access you can do it on the PC on tablet on a phone and you can get a free trial by going to the great courses plus com forward slash biographic some more about that a little later in this video [Music] Stephen William Hawking was born at the height of the Second World War on January the 8th 1842 in Oxford England it was exactly 300 years after the death of the father of astronomy Galileo Galilei both of his parents were graduates of Oxford University his father Frank was a medical researcher while his mother Isabelle worked as a medical research secretary they were a middle-class family with both parents being thought of in their community as rather odd brain boxes Stephen began his schooling at Byron House School in Highgate the school used a new progressive method of teaching to which Stephen did not take he stayed here for three years though and by the age of eight he could still not read at the war's end Frank was offered a job at the National Institute of Medical Research and the family moved to some talents here Frank wanted his son to attends the prestigious Westminster School however Stephen was sick on the day of the entrance exam and he ended up going to nearby and Alvin school instead Stephen at this school he was seen as a nerdy outcast he was small skinny and he spoke with a lisp that made it hard to understand what he was saying for the first two years of his time there he was very much a loner in the third year he managed to find a small group of like-minded friends there extracurricular activities included going on long bike rides and inventing board games Stephen he proved to be the most inventive and creative of this group and would come up with the rules and organize the state of play in these games Stephen had two younger sisters and brother who was adopted in 1955 however his parents showed little interest in domestic affairs the Hawking house was filled with books and the parents were too busy feeding their minds often reading books during dinner rather than conversing with their children Stephen regularly had his friends over where they would busy themselves building model planes and electronic devices from about the age of 12 onwards their discussions extended from science to religion they debated the big questions of life among themselves and it was at this time that Stephen began forming his atheistic beliefs Stephens teachers they soon identified a remarkable talent from automatics and physics in him he seems to intuitively know the answers without having to work through the problem by the age of 14 he knew that he wanted to specialize in physics he felt that he could provide an insight into the big questions that he and his friends have been grappling with where we are all from why we are here and where we're going at the age of 17 Stephen felt ready to take the entrance exam for university college at Oxford the exam was extremely challenging consisting of five papers and a general knowledge exam Hawking came out with a score of 95 percent once again though he found himself as an outsider at this prestigious place of learning he had no friends and so he kept to himself furthermore they found the lectures to be too basic for him which led to boredom he stopped going to many of them and still easily passed his exams the only lectures that he got any intellectual challenge from were those presented by his physics tutor Robert Berman Hawking was well ahead of his fellow students despite being much young of many of them his knowledge was so advanced that he occasionally made corrections in the very textbooks that he was studying at the end of his second year he easily won the university physics prize while at Oxford Stephen took up the sport of rowing rowing was and still is a very serious business at Oxford University and Stephen threw himself into it with complete commitments he became a coxswain the person who yells instructions to the rowers he simply loved the thrill of guiding his team to success it was his involvement in the rowing team which allowed Stephens a break out of his isolation and develop some budding friendships by the time that his old school mates from since albuns turned up as freshmen they were surprised to discover that the awkward boy that they knew had become a confident young man who had found a comfortable niche for himself at Oxford in fact he became so immersed in the social life of his environments that despite his innate ability he began to fall back academically with his third year exams approaching he quickly realized that he was not fully prepared he decided that his best bet was to focus solely on the theoretical problems that he could solve using his innate skill the results of the exam had him teetering between a first and second class honours degree he needed it to be first class in order to gain admittance to Cambridge where he planned to begin his work on his PhD the result depended on a final oral exam which she aced gaining first class honors before heading off to Cambridge Hawking took a trip to Iran with a friend he began at Cambridge in October of 1962 while he had been expecting to directly under the guidance of the famous astronomer Fred how this was actually not to be the case he was disappointed to find out that his tuner was actually Dennis schema the reality of the situation was though the Hawking was actually better off on the skier man who had more time to guide his students than Hoyle would have had Hawking specialized in the study of cosmology it was now that he faced his first real intellectual challenge he quickly realized that his mathematical knowledge was not deep enough for him to really get to grips with the complications of Einstein's general theory of relativity [Music] at about this time hawking began to experience some physical abnormalities his speech was starting to slur and he was prone to losing his balance when he returns home for the 1962 Christmas holidays his parents were so concerned that they sent him to a specialist a series of tests were undertaken and then it was simply a matter of waiting for the results in the meantime Hawking attended a New Year's Eve party where he met a young lady by the name of Jane Wilde Jane was attracted to the eccentric young intellectual and the two struck up an immediate attraction Stephen had already returned to Cambridge when the results of the tests came through he had developed ALS which is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease it's a condition in which the body's cells to generate causing paralysis and muscle atrophy yes while the body deteriorates the brain is unaffected so walking now at the prospect of being trapped within a dysfunctional body the prognosis related to Hawking was that he had just two years to live the symptoms that he experienced in the first few months were weakness stammering while speaking and having trouble swallowing Hawking later reflected on his feelings at the time a disease which can never be healed I'm in the clutches of the disease which is calling me closer to my death the thought itself used to bring cramps of fear in the stomach why have I only been caught by just disease Stevens doctors and his parents advised him to continue his studies at Cambridge they believed that staying focused on the goal of achieving his PhD would help him to cope with the pain and frustration of dealing with his failing body but Hawking struggled with the idea that he was working so hard for a reward that he would probably not live to receive what was the point is the question that kept dancing around in the back of his brain it has been reported the Hawking fell into a deep depression at this time he was spending his days drinking and listening to Wagner in a student flats however the man himself actually later denied this assertion he certainly went into a period of confusion and lack of focus but he also did his best to continue with the studies after a year his symptoms had stabilized and his spirits began to pick up it was also this time that he picked up his real with Jane walls he became a great supporter and encouraged her of him it was she who gave him a glimmer of hope for a brighter future the two became engaged in October of 1964 Jane had committed herself to looking after Steven for the rest of his life and they were married on July the 14th 1965 after two years of living with the disease Hawking was able to get around on a cane though this speech was becoming increasingly unintelligible he was still searching for an area of focus for his thesis Fred Hoyle has just pronounced his theories on the discovery of the universe and Hawking believed that Boyle's theory was flawed and he publicly challenged these theories he then proceeded to write his thesis on the topic and it was well received by the cosmology community it was this that really established talking as a player of note in the field [Music] after graduating from Cambridge with a PhD in Applied Mathematics and theoretical physics hawking applied form and received a fellowship at Cambridge is gone villain Keyes College this provided him with a secure job which gave him further confidence in his future yes his condition had now reached the stage where he could no longer write so he had to rely on Jane to record his thoughts Hawking's job at the college required him to supervise students for a few hours every day providing him with plenty of time to pursue his research studies he and Jane set up their home in a small house not far from the college they enjoyed entertaining friends and the house was often filled with dinner guests in December of 1965 Hawking was invited to the United States to give an address at a Miami conference however his speech was so slurred that a friend had to read the address on his behalf the speech though it was well received further cementing his growing reputation as an exciting new thinker in the world of cosmology Marjane spends a lot of time and effort caring for her husband she had given up on her own career when the couple had met she was in the midst of a degree in Modern Languages she completed that degree in 1967 that year she also gave birth to their first child Robert two more children would follow Lucy in 1970 and Timothy in 1979 the birth of his first child was a further motivator for Hawking to positively toward the future despite the fact that it already outlived his initial prognosis he had a family now along with a promising career as a budding genius in fact some were even already calling him the successor to Einstein the turning points in Hawking's career occurred when he attended a lecture by mathematician Robert Penrose in the address Penrose expounded his theory of space-time singularity in the center of a black hole Hawking latched on to the pan or a singularity theory and applied it to the entire universe if he could prove the mathematics behind it he knew that this would be a momentous addition to the understanding of the origins of the universe mathematics was Hawking strong points so he collaborated with Penrose who presented his calculations by way of visual representations in order to help Hawking who was unable to record the calculations himself the Big Bang Theory was predicated on the idea that the universe was not static but actually continually expanding according to this theory the universe began as a black hole that was held together by gravity the egg at the center of the hole it was extremely hot and as it cooled over billions of years it started to expand with the protons neutrons and electrons forming the Stars and the galaxies which make up our visible universe Hawking he was not the originator of this new theory but his work such as the sa singularities and the geometry of space-time gave it a strong underpinning [Music] by the end of the 1960's Hawking's ALS had deteriorated to the point where he had become wheelchair-bound the intense speed of his mental cognition however caused him to move around with maximum speed in this wheelchair it also caused him to quickly become impatient and irritable with those around him despite his raw temperament seem actually became very popular with students and colleagues alike in the early 1970s Hawking took on the task of reconciling the two opposing theories that had divided physics for years quantum mechanics and relativity during his work he discovered that black holes in it radiation he published this finding in an article in nature magazine there was initially some push back to this but eventually his finding was accepted and it came to be known as Hawking radiation the discovery of black hole radiation was a big deal and it led to publicity beyond the scientific community Hawking was now receiving general media attention giving rise to the fame which would see him lauded as the wheelchair genius in 1973 Hawking published his first book the large-scale structure of space-time the following year at 32 he became one of the youngest people to become a member of the Royal Society in 1974 he was also invited to spend the year at the California Institute of Technology yeah he was able to make use of the very best equipment including the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that is attached to the Institute during his year in America he was able to work alongside famous American theoretical physicists kept Thorne the Hawking family thoroughly enjoyed their year in sunny California over the years Stephen would frequently return to Caltech to make use of their advanced facilities at the end of their time in the US the family returned to Cambridge where they moved into a bigger house on the college grounds in 1976 as students in residence by the name of Don Paige joined the Hawking household page you would walk walking to this office every morning and perform other caretaking jobs around this time Jane began to feel confined by her life as a mother and wife to a wheelchair-bound husband with Paige now on hand to help out with Stevens care she embarked upon a PhD in evil Spanish poetry once she gained it she began teaching at Cambridge University the couple began experiencing marital problems from the mid-1970s one cause of their dis court was the wildly divergent religious views that each held Jane was a committed Christian while Stephen he was a confirmed atheist the relationship remained strained until their divorce in 1995 in 1976 Hawking was invited to a number of conferences around the United States following which he ended up on TV talk shows though his speech was difficult to understand he did prove hit with American audiences in 1979 Hawking was appointed Lucasian Professor of mathematics at Cambridge this position brought great prestige with the couple now being the center of the Cambridge social elite Hawking enjoyed attending concerts and movies and despite his physical limitations he was enjoying his life more than ever before still he became disappointed at the lack of facilities for handicapped people in the community and became an advocate for disabled facilities in 1983 a BBC horizon documentary gave TV viewers an insight into the private life of the wheelchair genius this went a long way in promoting his celebrity status in 1984 he put out several feelers to publishing houses to write a definitive book of his theories for a lay audience Bantam publishing offered him a 250 thousand dollar advance it took four years do you produce the book which he called a brief history of time it became an instant bestseller and to date has sold more than 10 million copies in July of 1985 Hawking was in Geneva when he found himself unable to breathe after arriving in the hospital he underwent tracheotomy surgery the surgery it was a success but the payoff was that he lost his voice the challenge was now how to provide Hawking with a way to communicate with the world and this was solved by a computer programmer by the name of Walt Walters his equaliser program allowed Hawking to select words from a screen that would then be converted into a voice synthesizer from the early 1980s onwards Hawking and employed full-time nurses by the end of the decade he had become alarmingly close to one of them a woman by the name of Alain Mason she was a woman with a dominance and protective personality in early 1990 Hawking told Jane that he was leaving the family home and moving in with Elaine Mason was herself married to a family friend at that time Hawking instituted divorce proceedings to officially end his marriage to Jane when the divorce came through in 1995 he and Elaine were married in the ensuing years there were rumors that Elaine was physically controlling and abusive to her husbands after eleven years the marriage ended in his autobiography Hawking referred to his years with Elaine as passionate and tempestuous in the 1990s Hawking became interested in time-travel he was of the opinion that the only possible way for time-travel to exist would be if it did not alter the status quo in other words if a time-travel machine could be created in the future people would only be able to travel back until the time when that machine was created because prior to that time the machine did not exist many people they rejected Hawking's ideas on time-travel and in order to prove his point in an irreverent way he decided to hold a party which was open to anyone and served free food and champagne the catch was that he only advertised the events after it had occurred so only time travelers would be aware of it unsurprisingly though no one turned up in the early 2000s Hawking focused on publishing more popular books starting with 2000 and ones that universe in a nutshell and in 2005 he put out a brief history of time both of which were bestsellers by then his iconic status was well established being cemented with appearances on The Simpsons and Star Trek The Next Generation by 2005 Hawking's condition had deteriorated to the extent that he could only control his speech controls with movements of his cheek muscles from 2009 he could no longer move his electric wheelchair himself and his breathing became increasingly difficult the end game peacefully on the morning of March the 14th 2018 it was the one hundred and thirty ninth anniversary of the birth of Albert Einstein Stephen Hawking was a professor at one of the best universities in the world since he was a man who shared his knowledge with the world through books that could be understood by everyday folks and that's why I'm particularly pleased that the great courses plus is involved with today's video on their learning platform you can learn from Ivy League professors and others as they give lectures online these can be a great way to learn about some of the concepts that Hawking works on including lectures about black holes and quantum physics but there's also plenty of other stuff on there from history to travel to health basically it's really a university education but it's at your own pace with no tests and no schedules and it's also very easy to access you can do it on your PC on your tablet even on your phone they've even recently added streaming so you can listen on the move something I particularly love I just pop the audio in when I'm walking around or going for a jog and on the platform there are currently 10,000 lectures then you can choose from so yeah it's all great stuff and the best way to find that out is to try it for yourself and you can do that for free by going to you the great courses plus comm forward slash biographic s' or simply clicking the link in the description below and doing that does help support this show getting more biographic out to you every week so again the great courses plus it's just a great way to expand your knowledge on a whole range of subjects taught by the best in the world and as always I really hope you enjoyed that video please do give it a thumbs up 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Channel: Biographics

Views: 135,393

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Keywords: biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler, stephen hawking, stephen hawking biography, who was stephen hawking, what was wrong with stephen hawking, steven hawking, stephen hawking death, stephen hawking theories, what did stephen hawking do

Id: Ja5DBcwlbo8

Length: 21min 14sec (1274 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 26 2018