Stephen Hawking (44 page)

When the Civil Rights Bill in Britain eventually fell upon stony ground in 1994, Hawking urged people to react by opposing the government, saying, “I don't think any disabled person should vote for the present government unless they do something to atone for the shabby way they killed the Civil Rights Bill.”
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But at the same time as he has been furthering his own career and helping others, he has had some fun. In 1993, while he was visiting the set of
Star Trek, the Next Generation
, Hawking let slip to the executives taking him around the
Enterprise
that he had always fantasized about appearing in an episode of the program. No sooner was it mentioned than the producers managed to work him into the script in a cameo role for an episode being filmed at the time. In this, his first and only dramatic role to date, Hawking appeared on the holodeck of the USS
Enterprise
to play poker with Data, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. Afterward, one of the executives who had arranged for Hawking to appear said, “He may admire the show but we are bigger fans of his.”
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Not surprisingly, Hawking was soon in demand within the entertainment world. Pink Floyd sampled him talking for their album
The Division Bell
; and in
OK Computer
, released in the summer of 1997, Radiohead composed a musical collage built around Hawking reading from a pre-prepared script the band had written for him.

On the Internet, Hawking also attracts a great deal of attention from surfers not only interested in physics and the extreme edge of cosmological research but also fascinated by his celebrity status, his relationship with science fiction and now even popular music. There are literally thousands
of Stephen Hawking and
A Brief History of Time
sites on the World Wide Web, and through Internet forums it is remarkably easy to find people around the world at any time of the night or day happy to discuss obscure aspects of the professor's work and thoughts. Not all of these are trivial fan websites and forums—there is the official Stephen Hawking website and lectures published by Hawking supporters and detractors. These range from other scientists working in allied fields, through producers and journalists putting their interviews and scripts online, to vigorous opponents of Hawking's religious and philosophical views publishing online arguments refuting his statements and offering alternatives to his ideas.

Within the cloistered world of Cambridge University, Hawking is certainly the most famous and revered academic since Isaac Newton. Today he is tended around the clock by no fewer than ten nurses. He has a sumptuous office in a new building on the west side of Cambridge. Here he has had new pictures and posters put on the walls including a mock-up poster that shows Marilyn Monroe leaning against a Cadillac with Hawking in his wheelchair beside her as though they are about to go out on date together. He also has a sign on the wall that reads “Yes, I am the center of the universe.” Pictures of his three children are still in evidence—but there are now none of Jane Hawking, of course.

Adoration and respect are the upside of Hawking's new-found status as some sort of universal guru, but as his fame has escalated, controversy has naturally followed close behind; controversy that has often overshadowed his scientific pronouncements and upset his private life.

The backlash (and that is really not too harsh a description) began in the early 1990s, when some of his colleagues within the scientific community began to question openly what they saw as the ridiculous hyperbole that had appeared in the wake of Hawking's trail-blazing career. Rival writer and physicist John Barrow commented in one newspaper interview: “In a list of the twelve best theoretical physicists this century, Steve would be nowhere near.”
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And a new attack soon began. Articles started to appear by journalists condemning what they saw as Hawking's own lack of qualification in making his now-famous comments about religion and the interface between his scientific and religious ideas. In October 2001, a poll run by the science journal
Physics World
to find those whom physicists themselves believed to be the greatest practitioners of their profession throughout history placed Einstein top with 119 votes and Newton second with 46, but Hawking received only 1 vote and came in last (along with many other scientists).

Most prominent among Hawking's critics is journalist Bryan Appleyard, who has repeatedly attacked Hawking in the popular press, calling him “arrogant” and claiming that his remarks outside the world of physics are “intellectually feeble.” Appleyard's principal contention is that Hawking knows nothing of philosophy but is trying to belittle the subject and to replace religious and philosophical conviction with a purely empirical view of the universe. But in our opinion, Appleyard is blinded by his own misguided conviction that philosophy is the noblest of subjects, declaring in one particularly vitriolic piece:

The admittedly thrilling and extraordinary nature of speculative physics works to convince readers they are
in the hands of a great universal adept, and that this wizard will surely be as able to navigate the human realms as deftly as he does that of the stars. The first danger of this kind of belief is that it diminishes and discredits science itself. Hawking's idea of science is that of a rarefied discipline far above the heads of ordinary people and definitely superior to all competing forms of knowledge.
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If this were so, why did Stephen Hawking write a popular science book, why does he go out of his way to give free lectures to the public, and why is he so keen to have his books reach as wide a market as possible? His motivation can certainly not be solely attributed to financial reward and egomania.

The general feeling among many scientists who support Hawking's stance is that Appleyard has an axe to grind and has picked on Hawking as the embodiment of what he most despises about science. Hawking himself has said of the journalist, “He has a real chip on his shoulder. I don't know that I have seen him write approvingly of anyone. I feel he's a failed intellectual and so he has to decry everyone else.”
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Appleyard is certainly not the only public critic of Hawking. Several academics have gone on record criticizing what they see as Hawking's pure and even dangerous atheism, and a few have taken their grievances with them to the lecture circuit. One of Hawking's most able critics is the Nobel Prize nominee chemist Dr. “Fritz” Schaefer of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia in the United States. In a lecture delivered in 1994
and now available on the Net, he quoted the great physicist (and atheist) Richard Feynman, who once said: “Everything in physical science is a lot of protons, neutrons and electrons, while in daily life, we talk about men and history or beauty and hope. Which is nearer to God—beauty and hope or the fundamental laws? To stand at either end and to walk off that end of the pier only, hoping that out in that direction is a complete understanding, is a mistake.” Schaefer then added, “I would have to say that what Stephen Hawking has done is to walk off one end of that pier.”

Most of the flak has come not only from Hawking's uncompromising empirical stance but also from his seeming disrespect for religious or philosophical explanations of the origin and nature of the universe. For this part, Hawking considers the many public statements of his antagonists as a touch hysterical and has wryly commented that if he had not included the famous line of
A Brief History of Time
—“However, if we do discover a complete theory . . . then we would know the mind of God”—he would have probably halved his sales at a single stroke.

Although he may not be quite so evangelical as some other acclaimed science popularizers, his clinical dismissal of religion and what has been seen as unforgivable arrogance are backed by a genuine belief in the claims he makes for science. Looked at dispassionately, Hawking merely offers an alternative purist view that may be taken or left at the discretion of the individual.

At the same time, whether his reputation is justified or not, there is no denying that Professor Stephen Hawking is now established as the “scientific genius” of our age and, as
such, he is approached for comment upon almost anything that happens, even on the fringes of science—and, perhaps unwisely, in his ongoing search for even greater fame he is always quick to respond.

Following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, and as fears of biological attack swept across America, Hawking was reported as saying: “I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet.” When asked for his views on nuclear weapons, he responded: “In the long term I'm more worried about biology. Nuclear weapons need large facilities, but genetic engineering can be done in a small lab. You can't regulate every lab in the world.”
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A list of the subjects upon which Hawking has offered comment in recent years includes aliens: “I think that any alien visitation would be obvious and probably unpleasant.” Of the National Lottery he declares: “I object to the National Lottery because it encourages gambling and because it takes money from those who are least able to afford it. . . . It is pretty shabby of the government to exploit their weakness.”
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He has dabbled in politics, nominating Anne Campbell as the labor candidate in Cambridge during the 1997 general election, and he became a representative for Cambridge University in protracted discussions with the computer entrepreneur Bill Gates when Cambridge made its successful bid to site a massive new Microsoft research complex in the city. He is a great fan of the Internet. After having his computer system upgraded by Intel, Hawking claimed that he must be “one of the most connected people in the world and I can truly say, I'm Intel inside.”
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The company was so pleased with this publicity that
it added free new software to his wheelchair, enabling him to use radio signals to operate lights, doors, and other electrical devices by remote control. He has even had a word or two to say about pop music, announcing in the Cambridge University student magazine
Varsity
that he likes Oasis.

In 1998, Hawking met President Bill Clinton at the White House. During the election campaign of 2000, he made it very clear that he considered Al Gore to be the best hope for America and the world, declaring to the press his belief that “Mr. Gore is more prepared than any other world figure I know of to meet the challenges of the future. . . . The next president of the United States is more than a leader of your country. He will have to pilot the whole world through a period of ever-increasing change brought about by the advances in science and technology that are transforming our lives. Al Gore understands the implications of this change and will be able to shape it and seize its opportunities.”
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At the same time as he has been seen endorsing products and promoting good causes, Hawking's sudden international fame has also set him up as a target for the gutter press. When he and Elaine Mason decided to marry in 1995, the story made headlines around the world, and not all of the comments that appeared in print were complimentary or congratulatory.

Naturally, all the ingredients for a sensational story were there. Hawking, the most physically disabled person in public life, the cliché of the purely cerebral entity confined to a wheelchair, was having an extramarital relationship with his nurse and had left his loving wife of twenty-five years and his three children. David Mason, former husband of Hawking's fiancée, had been left devastated with the two heartbroken
children from the marriage. And to top it off, deep down, between the lines of print, the hyperbole, and the hypocrisy lay the fact that Hawking and Elaine were clearly having a sexual relationship. It was perfect media fodder.

Sadly, behind the sensational coverage of Hawking's remarriage lay genuine pain and heartache for a collection of people including Stephen and his new partner. Jane was naturally devastated by the news, and for almost the first time she broke her silence concerning her feelings about Stephen, their marriage, and their breakup. As is often the case with couples splitting up, by the time Hawking had announced his marriage to Elaine and the papers were full of the couple's plans, the relationship between Jane and Stephen had long since slid into recrimination and bitterness, and for a long time they did not speak to each other except over matters concerning their children. During 1995 Jane was the subject of a collection of interviews in daily newspapers and was candid about her feelings. “I do not know the dynamics of their situation,” she said referring to Stephen and Elaine, “but I believe it was ill-advised.” She then went on to comment cryptically: “I fear he has been caught up in forces beyond his control. I have been very concerned about what is happening to Stephen for a long time and I will continue to be concerned.”
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Hawking's daughter, Lucy, also broke her silence and wrote a very revealing piece for a national paper in which she described a suppressed but deep sadness and resentment over the breakup of her parents' marriage. But at the same time she pointed out that she had never had what might be considered a “normal” childhood, and that despite the best efforts of her parents, she had been caught up in the offshoots of her father's
celebrity status. Apparently one anonymous Hawking fan whom she had never met had written proposing marriage—on the condition that she first read his physics thesis.

Lucy was in Prague when her father married Elaine Mason, and Hawking's elder son, Robert, was in the United States where he now lives and works. On the day of the wedding, Jane and Stephen's younger son, Tim, stayed at home together, and neither of the Mason children attended the ceremony.