The character arc of Stephen Hawking
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford into a family of physicians. Between then and his death sit a first-class degree at seventeen, a diagnosis of motor neurone disease at twenty one with a life expectancy of two years, a doctorate finished anyway, marriage to Jane Wilde in 1965, the singularity theorems with Roger Penrose, the prediction in 1974 that black holes emit radiation, election to the Royal Society at thirty two, the Lucasian chair in 1979, pneumonia at CERN in 1985 that cost him his voice, a synthesised one built to replace it, A Brief History of Time in 1988, thirty nine doctoral students, and a final paper published after his death. The line below draws the whole story.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Stephen Hawking?
Two years, they told him. He took fifty five more.
He went up to University College, Oxford at seventeen and took a first in physics, then to Trinity Hall, Cambridge for graduate work in 1962. He met Jane Wilde at a party that year. In 1963, at twenty one, he was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease, and the doctors gave him two years.
The first doctoral year was bad. He had wanted Fred Hoyle as a supervisor and got Dennis Sciama, he thought his mathematics was not up to the work, and after the diagnosis he felt there was little point in continuing. His doctors told him to carry on with his studies. Sciama pushed him back to work. And the disease turned out to move far more slowly than anybody had predicted. He said later that before he got motor neurone disease he had been bored with life, and that the prospect of an early death made him realise life was really worth living.
What followed is one of the great runs in twentieth century physics. The thesis approved in 1966 and an essay that shared the Adams Prize with one by Roger Penrose. The singularity theorems with Penrose. In 1974, at thirty two, the claim that black holes emit radiation until they exhaust their energy and evaporate, which John Taylor called absolute rubbish after a lecture and which was widely accepted as a major breakthrough by the end of the decade. Election to the Royal Society the same year, among the youngest ever. The Lucasian chair in 1979, held for thirty years. The information paradox in 1981 and the long argument it started.
In 1982 he decided to write a book about the universe for the general public, to pay for his children education and the house. He signed with a mass-market publisher rather than an academic press. A Brief History of Time came out in April 1988 and stayed on the bestseller lists for months, spending a record 237 weeks on the Sunday Times list and selling around nine million copies.
The body kept taking things. By the late 1970s only his family and closest friends could understand his speech. Pneumonia at CERN in 1985 nearly killed him and the tracheotomy that saved him took the rest of his voice; Jane refused a nursing home and he was cared for at home in three shifts. In 1986 he was given a program that let him pick words with a switch from a bank of a few thousand, and it became the voice everybody knows. He married Jane in 1965 and they had three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy; they divorced in 1995 and he married Elaine Mason, and after that divorce in 2006 he grew close to his family again. He supervised thirty nine doctoral students, retired from the Lucasian chair in 2009, helped launch a search for extraterrestrial life in 2015, and died on 14 March 2018 at seventy six. His last paper was published six weeks later.
The moments
Stephen Hawking's timeline.
The 1940s
Born in Oxford
Everyday. Oxford, in wartime, into a house of doctors.
The 1950s
Oxford at seventeen
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Seventeen, and a first.
The 1960s
Cambridge, and Jane
Milestone, and it changed his direction. The same year brought the work and the wife.
Two years to live
Setback, and it changed everything. Twenty one years old, and a number.
Finish the doctorate, or stop
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: go back to the work, taken, or stop, and take the time. He worked for fifty five more years, held the Lucasian chair for thirty of them, and supervised thirty nine doctorates.
He goes back to work
Milestone, and it changed everything. His own sentence about the thing that was killing him.
He marries Jane
Milestone, and it changed everything. They got engaged knowing exactly what they were signing up for.
The doctorate, and the Adams Prize
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Three years past the two he was given.
The 1970s
Black holes emit radiation
Milestone, and it changed everything. The idea that made his name, and it was called rubbish first.
Fellow of the Royal Society
Milestone, and it changed everything. Thirty two, and one of the youngest ever elected.
The Lucasian chair
Milestone, and it changed everything. The chair Newton had held.
The 1980s
He decides to write for everybody
Milestone, and it changed everything. He wrote it to pay the school fees.
Pneumonia takes his voice
Setback, and it changed everything. He survived it, and it cost him his voice.
A voice built from a switch
Milestone, and it changed everything. The first thing he said with the new voice was let us finish the book.
A Brief History of Time
Milestone, and it changed everything. Nine million copies of a book about cosmology.
The 2000s
A book with his daughter
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Five books for children, written with his daughter.
Thirty nine doctorates
Milestone, and it changed everything. Thirty nine physicists, taught through a switch.
The 2010s
He dies at seventy six
Setback, and it changed everything. Fifty five years after the two he was given.
His thesis is still the most requested item in the Cambridge repository and his last book came out after he had gone. What he set moving is a working life that was supposed to be two years long and lasted fifty five, done entirely in a chair, most of it through a switch, and it rewrote what everybody thinks a black hole is.
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Stephen Hawking: frequently asked questions
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More character arcs
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Sources
- Stephen Hawking, English Wikipedia biography.
- A Brief History of Time, 1988, and Brief Answers to the Big Questions, 2018.
- Properties of Expanding Universes, his 1966 thesis, opened by Cambridge in 2017.
- Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, by Jane Hawking, 2007.