Hawking

It's really steep.

- (CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICK) - (APPLAUSE)

Huge fan, huge fan. - Would you like to have your photo taken?

Can I have your picture?

Come on, you guys. Want to have your picture?

- Here you go. - Pleased to have you here.

Cheesy grin.

- (GIGGLES) - Smile.

Another cheesy grin.

All the great scientists and this is one of 'em - Kepler and...

Galileo, Newton - we've got one right here. It's fantastic. Amazing!

My name is Stephen Hawking.

For the past 50 years, I have travelled the world

studying and lecturing about time and space

and the laws that govern the universe.

- Hey, Stephen, break a leg. - Don't say that! (LAUGHS)

I'll have to look after him.

This film is a personal journey through my life

told in my own words.

Come with me and I will show you how I live and work today...

...and tell you the story of how I became who I am.

Welcome to my world.

So are you going to take your lunch in the cafeteria?

- It's up to you. - Yes.

I just have to give Judith a call...

WOMAN'. I think it would kill him

if he was in a home, being cared for by nurses.

I think that would be the end for him.

He likes to be able to choose what he wants to do with his life,

he loves the danger of flying, he wants to go into space

and he's been in submarines!

He's just the most craziest man.

He's got a lot of guts in him.

Just through here is the nurses' room.

So if anything medical happens, we'll just grab a phone, phone 999,

but there is not much we can actually do

because Stephen is on a Nippy, which he'll breathe on.

If that fails, the only other thing we could do and we do have -

we have oxygen cylinders and we can give him oxygen,

but if he's in a total state then we will have to let him go.

I have lived over two thirds of my life

with the threat of death hanging over me.

Because every new day could be my last,

I have developed a desire to make the most of each and every minute.

Although I'm 71 now,

I still go to work every day at Cambridge University.

I'll see you in a bit. Enjoy your shopping.

Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival,

as has been maintaining a sense of humour.

- Morning, Judith. - Hello.

When I went to my job interview,

I thought he was going to ask me

about my past medical history and what I've done before in care,

but he didn't, he asked whether I could cook poached eggs!

And... (LAUGHS) ...I was 19 at the time and I lied,

cos I didn't know how to cook poached eggs, but I got the job straightaway.

Er...it ain't like going to work any more,

it's like just gonna go and see a friend...

well, family.

Stephen's been there through the years of me growing up

and, like, turning into an adult.

So he's been there through most of the important stages of my life.

I've had a very privileged life, thanks to Stephen.

Do you enjoy my company?

- Maybe. - (LAUGHS)

You're horrible to me, ain't ya?

- Yes. - (LAUGHS)

As you can see, the gradual advance of my illness

has meant that I am totally reliant on those around me.

71 years ago, life started that way too.

I was born in 1942, exactly 300 years after the death of Galileo.

My parents were both at Oxford University,

where my father studied medicine.

He later specialised in tropical diseases.

It is often said that a person's early years

are a good indication of how they will turn out.

Perhaps my eldest sister, Mary, remembers me best.

I remember Stephen was very bright, always into things.

I remember my father made me a dolls' house,

so Stephen put in both plumbing and lighting!

He liked to win.

He liked to win in everything.

We all learnt to play draughts.

I beat Stephen once, once at draughts,

and he immediately took up chess and I never beat him at that again!

[also spent a lot of time playing on my own as a boy.

I had a passion to understand how things worked,

from toy trains to the whole universe.

He would spend a lot of time looking at the sky,

looking at the, um...

stars and wondering where... eternity came to an end.

He couldn't conceive that there could be something

without a finish.

Home life was always stimulating for me and my siblings.

My mother and father were intellectuals

and naturally they expected their children to follow.

Both my parents were moving in the Highgate-Hampstead intelligentsia,

that sort of circle.

We always talked -

everyone talked, and everybody argued.

We used to argue theology a lot. It's a great thing for kids

because you don't need any facts whatsoever.

To outsiders, the Hawking household was considered eccentric,

but, for me, it was a place where my mind was constantly challenged.

There were books everywhere.

Bookshelves that were double-banked. Bookshelves that had,

on top of upright books,

rows of other books shoehorned in wherever there was space.

It was a less conventional house -

one in which the children had a great deal of freedom

and I remember being

quite gob-smacked by the conversation over lunch.

It was about subjects which were never talked about in my house -

sex, homosexuality, arguments for and against abortion

and various other subjects that were quite unusual.

As I developed into a teenager, my parents taught me

to always question things and think big.

Stephen devised - and remember, this was in the early 1950s -

not just one, but two, computers,

which we built from scratch.

It was about the size of a half-depth fridge,

but about as tall and about as wide.

It solved logical problems posed in binary - if this condition is true

and that condition is true or that condition instead is true, then...

and it would give you what the "then" meant.

At school, my classmates gave me the nickname Einstein,

even though I was only ever halfway up the class.

It was, I like to think, a very bright class.

It was always assumed that Stephen would go to Oxford.

Both my parents had been to Oxford, you know, he was extremely bright,

there was never any doubt about this.

He and my father had a difference of opinion about what he should study.

Father thought it would be a good thing if Stephen did medicine,

but Stephen was not into medicine -

he'd have made the most awful doctor... (LAUGHS)

...so they compromised.

STEPHEN'. We agreed on a degree in natural sciences, specialising in physics.

The prevailing attitude at Oxford at the time was very anti-work.

You were supposed to be brilliant without effort...

or to accept your limitations and get a fourth-class degree.

To work hard to get a better class of degree

was regarded as the mark of a ”grey man " -

the worst epithet in the Oxford vocabulary.

I think Steve and I fell,

both of us, right into that category,

that there was no need to work or to appear to work,

and Steve was a very funny guy.

He was able to appreciate jokes

and tell jokes the whole time

and spontaneous humour was really his forte.

Row! Row!

Row!

STEPHEN'. At Oxford, I joined the Rowing Club and became a cox.

I relished in the freedom, the speed

and, of course, calling the shots.

The Rowing Club also introduced me

to one of my favourite pastimes at Oxford...

...partying.

I once calculated that I did about a thousand hours' work

in the three years I was there, an average of an hour a day.

I'm not proud of this lack of work,

I'm just describing my attitude at the time,

which I shared with most of my fellow students.

Within the whole year, people gradually thought of Steve

as being the brilliant guy in the year,

but he was brilliant in the sense that he could

make off-the-cuff remarks which were deep...

...so he was definitely a stand-out person of intellect.

The question always was

whether he would use that intellect to go anywhere.

Good evening, Professor Hawking.

STEPHEN'. Well, if the number of champagne receptions one goes to

is a measure of success, then it would seem that I have made it.

Tonight, I am guest of honour

at the launch of a supercomputer called Cosmos, in Cambridge.

Cosmos is one of the most powerful computers in the world

and will enable us to better understand our place in the universe.

Stephen's perhaps the world's

most famous scientist, you know, and one can't deny that it's fantastic

to have his support.

It really is a big day for theoretical cosmology in the UK.

STEPHEN'. The notion of fame is a curious thing to me.

In my mind, I am a scientist who has been lucky to work

on some of the fundamental mysteries of our universe.

Sometimes I wonder if I am as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities

as I am for my discoveries.

As my student days were in full swing,

I was gradually becoming aware that all was not well.

During my final year at Oxford, I had noticed

that I was getting rather clumsy

in my movements

and I fell over once or twice for no apparent reason.

But then one evening, late at night, something more serious happened.

I recall the time that Steve fell down the stairs.

He fell downstairs all the way to the bottom.

He'd lost consciousness and then he couldn't remember who he was.

He couldn't remember where he was, so it was a very serious thing.

STEPHEN'. When I look back at that fall,

I didn't realise at the time it was a warning sign of things to come...

...but I recovered and soon had more pressing things on my mind.