On the 14 March 2018, on what would have been Albert Einstein’s 139th birthday, internationally renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking died. He was born 76 years earlier, on 8 January 1942, precisely 300 years after the death of Galileo. Many words will be written on his scientific work, from black holes to the birth of the universe, but, of course, his cultural impact has been much larger.
Hawking appeared on the public stage in 1988, with the publication of A Brief History of Time, a book he wrote “partly to earn money to pay [his] daughter’s school fees”, but mainly to “explain how far we had come in our understanding of the universe”. After , A Brief History was released to the public and sold more than 10 million copies, becoming an international best-seller.
But it is clearly more than this work, sometimes described as the “least-read, most-bought book ever”, that cemented Hawking into the public consciousness. The image of the wheelchair-bound genius, who can explore the universe with only the power of thought, is captivating.
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Facing the future
Having paid for his daughter’s school fees, Hawking could have retreated back into his academic sphere. Instead, as a celebrity scientist on the world stage, he decided to confront the wider issues facing our planet. He regularly commented on the challenges in store for humanity, about the risks of nuclear war or biological catastrophe, from the rise of robots to the value of people to an all-powerful artificial intelligence that might see us as little more than a nuisance.
Hawking was also worried about the depletion of the world’s resources, and the increasing impact of climate change, urging humanity to consider plans to leave the planet and chart a future amongst the stars.
In recent years, Hawking teamed up with tech billionaire Yuri Milner to found the Breakthrough Initiative, a programme to drive technological innovation in the search for extraterrestrial life. This might seem detached from his focus on the problems facing us here on Earth, but Hawking told us that we must “remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet”.
The goal of one aspect of this initiative, Breakthrough Starshot, is to accelerate miniature space probes up to 20 per cent of the speed of light to reach the nearest stars in just 20 years rather than millennia. While it is unlikely that today’s Starshot technology will ever ferry people through space, it does provide inspiration to think about where our future should lie.
Cult of personality
Every time Hawking spoke, the media reported, bringing these issues to a wider audience.
Some scientists have been uncomfortable with the cult of personality that grew up around Hawking, and his wife spoke of her problems with his “sycophantic” followers. Eyes often rolled when another “Hawking said…” story appeared in the media.
But as we remember him, it is important to acknowledge that he was much bigger than his science. He cast a much larger cultural shadow, being the public face for his subject, and the image of the genius, for more than three decades.
I am too old to have been inspired into science by his presence in the media, but as the tributes flow in, and social media responds, it is clear how many younger scientists were drawn to their chosen career by the author of A Brief History of Time. For many reasons, he will be remembered for a very long time.
Read more: Stephen Hawking: Tributes pour in as physicist dies aged 76;A brief history of Stephen Hawking: A legacy of paradox;Stephen Hawking at 70: Exclusive interview
