The Theory of Everything

Well, come on!

Oh! Come on, old man!

Coming into Trinity Lane.

Oh!

Eyes on the road, Brian!

Whoa!

Brian spies an opening!

A-ha!

Eyes on the staff!

Hawking's lost it!

Whoa!

No!

You lose, Brian.

Too slow, old man. Too slow.

Oh, my goodness. Right.

Time for a drink.

Hello.

Oo-pah!

What if the secret of the universe had something to do with sex, huh?

Maybe do your doctorate on that.

The physics of love.

I think that's more your field, Brian.

Oh, not lately.

They will boot you out, you know, if you don't decide.

I know everyone here who's...

Brilliant. Oh, dear.

Scientists.

- Ah, yes. - Ah, you made it.

Don't worry, we don't have to stay for long.

Looks mortifyingly dull.

Bores. Who's that?

Who's who?

Oh, him? Oh...

He's strange. Clever.

Goes to “Ban the Bomb“ marches.

Wilde. Jane Wilde.

Oh, look, there's David. David!

I'll be back in a minute. I'll be back in a second. Diana! Diana!

Hello. Hello.

Science. Arts.

English? French and Spanish.

What about you? What are you...

Oh, cosmologist, I'm a cosmologist.

What's that?

It's a kind of religion for intelligent atheists.

Intelligent atheists? Mmm-hmm.

You're not religious, are you?

C of E.

Church of England? England, yeah.

I suppose someone has to be.

What do cosmologists worship, then?

What do we worship? Mmm.

One single unifying equation

that explains everything in the universe.

Really? Yes.

What's the equation?

That is the question.

And a very good question.

I'm not quite sure yet.

But I intend to find out.

Then why didn't you stay at Oxford?

Because my finals exams were such a shambles,

that the examiners, they summoned me in for a viva,

and they told me that if I got a second...

What's a viva?

Oh, it's a sort of mildly terrifying face-to-face thingy.

Like an interview? An interrogation.

And I told them that if they gave me a second-class degree,

then I would stay with them and do my research at Oxford.

But if they gave me the first that I needed to get into Cambridge,

then they would never have to see me again.

They gave you the first.

They gave me a first. Of course.

This party is officially deceased.

Come on, I fixed up a ride home.

Come on, Jane.

Jane.

Well, it was lovely to talk to you.

Yes.

And I hope you find your equation.

Yes. Oh.

Ah. Bye.

Bye.

Stephen? Oh.

Yeah.

Well, then, here we are.

A little challenge for you all,

as you embark upon your separate doctoral journeys,

whatever they may be, Mr. Hawking.

Pass them down.

Something to separate the men from the boys,

the wheat from the chaff,

the mesons from the pi mesons,

the quarks from the quacks.

Ten questions, each more impregnable than the last.

Good luck. You'll need it.

Shall we say Friday, 3:00?

This is going to hospitalize me.

And, one. Drive!

Two. Drive!

Three. Drive!

Stay long, Brian. I'll give you something long.

Stay long, Brian! Keep long, Brian!

Shut up!

- Long, Brian! - I'm exhausted!

Stay long, Brian!

Flip it. Flip it, Wiggs.

Somebody else, for once.

Can I get two more of those, please? Yeah, sure.

And some change for the payphone. Yeah.

Steve, you all right, mate?

Jane.

No, of course, Timothy turned out to be an absolute cad.

I mean, you'll never guess who I saw him with the other day.

Caroline!

For heaven's sake, she can have him, quite frankly.

What's the probability?

Reasonably low.

Um... This is... This is Stephen.

- Do you play croquet? - Croquet?

Not recently.

Sunday morning.

Actually busy Sunday mornings.

Oh.

Him.

Okay.

Anyway, before I was completely interrupted...

Oh, come on, get up.

How many did you get?

Morning, Brian.

Good afternoon, Stephen.

How many of the impossible questions did you do?

Brian, I have no idea what you're talking about.

How many of Sciama's questions did you get, Stephen?

None. You didn't get any?

I was going to do them later.

You haven't even looked at them.

No.

Stephen, are you aware that you have voluntarily embarked upon

a PhD in physics, at the most prestigious college in England?

Yes. Oh.

I thought maybe you'd slept through the induction or something.

Bri?

What?

Can you whip on some Wagner?

Oh, sod off.

Come in, Stephen. Sorry.

Um, Michael, that's so illegible,

I can't quite decipher how wrong it is. I suspect enormously.

And, Brian, that's just baffling.

Have you even bothered, Stephen?

Oh, sorry. Uh...

Right. Train timetables.

Ah.

That's, uh, totally unacceptable.

These expired a month ago.

It's on the back, I had a little accident.

Ah.

I could only do nine.

Good Lord.

Oh, thank God. Bravo.

Nine?

Come in.

Ah, Stephen, take a seat.

I wanted to talk to you about your subject.

We're all rather concerned as to what it's going to be.

I can't decide.

Do you have any ideas?

No.

So, this is where J.J. Thomson discovered the electron,

and where Rutherford split the atom.

You know, one of the great rewards of this job is one never knows

from where the next great leap forward

is going to come, or from whom.

Listen, next Friday, I'm taking a few graduates of merit to London

to attend a talk by the mathematician Roger Penrose.

Do come along, if you're interested.

Oh, and close the door as you leave.

So, I gather you've never been to church.

Once upon a time.

Tempted to convert?

I have a slight problem with the whole "celestial dictator" premise.

Now, what are you doing for lunch?

Ma makes a cracking roast.

Ah, so, Jane, what are you studying?

Arts. Spuds?

Thank you.

Um, French and Spanish.

I'm hoping to do a PhD eventually.

Oh, what on?

Medieval poetry of the lberian Peninsula.

Medieval poets?

What painters do you like?

Well, I like Turner.

Mmm. Turner, really?

You know, I always feel that his paintings

look as if they've been left out in the rain.

- Oh. - Pa.

And William Blake.

Thank you, Mother. Oh, good heavens, surely not.