All language subtitles for Hawking 720p WEBDL-MiLLENiUM-eng

It's really steep.

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.

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!

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... 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.

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

Yes.

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...

...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.

Despite my relaxed attitude to study,

I graduated with first-class honours

and left Oxford for Cambridge University
to begin my PhD.

Yet little did I know

I would soon be diagnosed
with a crippling illness

that would change my life forever.

Well, Stephen's speed of communication
has very gradually slowed down.

A few years ago,
he was still able to use his hand switch

and able to communicate by

clicking this switch
on his wheelchair.

When he wasn't able
to do that any more,

we switched over to a switch
that he mounted to his cheek,

but with him slowing down with that

we've approached his sponsors

and so they've been
looking into facial recognition.

This is a high-speed camera

which will allow us to see
very fine details

on the facial expressions
and this will help us to improve

- the rate of your speech and input.
- Yeah.

STEPHEN'. I have had to learn to live
with my slow rate of communication.

I can only write by flinching
my cheek muscle

to move the cursor on my computer.

One day
I fear this muscle will fail,

but I would like to be able
to speak more quickly.

Do you want me to change it
to English Alphabetic?

Yeah. I'm buzzing.

Yeah?

Is that all...? Is that all OK, Stephen?

Yeah?

I'm not getting this at all,
Stephen.

Sometimes he can make a mistake

and then he deletes it and then

he makes another mistake and deletes it

and, you know, it can be frustrating
there watching

and he can see the frustration
on his face as well.

STEPHEN'. I am hoping this current
generation of software experts

can harness what little movement
I have left in my face

and turn it into faster communication.

Your current piece of software
is a little dated, well, it's a lot dated,

but you're very used to using it,

so we've changed
the method by which

your next word prediction works

and it can pretty much pick up

the correct word every single time,

even if you're... even if
you're letters away from it.

This is a big improvement
over the previous version.

I really like it.

- That's pretty amazing, the...
- I think it's actually gone brilliantly.

The stuff that we've showed him
he was excited about.

Anything better than
what he's doing,

I think, is going to be a success
and anything

that doesn't complicate Stephen's life
any more than it is,

I think that will be a success as well.

ATV120,
thank you very much.

STEPHEN'. In 1962, aged 20,

when I arrived at Cambridge
to begin my PhD,

I was also desperate for my voice
to be heard as I embarked

on my first real
scientific challenge.

At the time, two theories battled
to correctly describe the universe.

The steady-state theory

held that the universe
had always existed

and would exist forever.

But there was another,
more exciting idea.

The big-bang theory suggested

that the universe had begun
with a huge explosion.

I decided to try to see

if I could shed any light
on how the big bang came to be.

But, by now, the immediate challenge
I was facing

was to keep control of my body.

My movements were becoming
even more erratic,

though I was determined
not to worry my family,

so I tried to keep it to myself.

Stephen went home for Christmas
after one term

and the symptoms that he had

had become too severe
to hide from his parents.

His father insisted on taking him
to, I think, the family doctor first

and then that doctor recommended
a specialist in London.

So, after Christmas,
Stephen and his father went to London

and St Bartholomew's Hospital.

STEPHEN'. I was in hospital for two weeks

and had a wide range
of unpleasant tests.

They took a muscle sample from my arm
and stuck electrodes into me.

Then they injected some liquid
into my spine and took X-rays.

Eventually, I was diagnosed with
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...

...otherwise known
as motor neurone disease or ALS.

The prognosis was not good.

I was given two to three years to live.

It was always hard to tell
how Stephen took it,

because for one thing
he wouldn't talk about it.

You know, if you can't do
anything about it, you...

probably don't want
to talk about it, or...

...or have people talk about it.

He did seem pretty depressed

and I don't think
he accepted it emotionally.

The whole family went to pieces.

It was such a shock for everybody.

My aunt turned white in the night

and we all thought he'd be, you know...

he was not going to be able to live
for very long.

Not knowing
what was going to happen to me

or how rapidly the disease would progress,

I was at a loose end.

The doctors told me to go back to
Cambridge and carry on with my research...

...but I was not making much progress
and anyway

I might not live long enough
to finish my PhD.

I felt somewhat
of a tragic character,

I took to listening to Wagner.

The Annunciation Of Death)

Wagner's The Annunciation
Of Death made a great impression on me

when I first heard it, as I had just
developed motor neurone disease.

I identified with it
and still do today.

But as it turned out, I didn't die.

At first, the disease seemed
to progress fairly rapidly.

As time went by, however,
it seemed to slow down.

I also began to make progress
with my work.

But what really made the difference

was falling in love with a girl
called Jane Wilde

whom I had met
about the same time I was diagnosed.

This gave me something to live for.

Oh, he was great fun, he was eccentric.

I was really drawn
to his very wide smile

and his beautiful grey eyes...

...and I think that's what made me
fall in love with him.

We were going to defy the disease,

we were going to defy the doctors

and we were going
to challenge the future.

Jane was beautiful and gentle

and seemingly undaunted
by the harsh reality of my illness.

Falling in love
and getting engaged

was the motivation that I needed.

If I were to get married,
I had to get a job,

and to get a job
I had to finish my PhD.

I therefore started working hard
for the first time in my life.

To my surprise, I found I liked it.

Well, Stephen had found his groove,
he'd found his trajectory

and when Stephen finds a trajectory
he pursues it.

It was terribly exciting
because he had been so depressed

and here he was
with a new lease of life.

Perhaps because I realised
I might not have much time,

I renewed my efforts

to tackle the big question in cosmology
in the early '60s...

...did the universe
have a beginning or not?

Many scientists were instinctively opposed
to the idea of a big bang,

because it implies a moment of creation...

...the hand of God.

For me, though, religion has
no role to play in physics,

so I wondered if the big bang
could have happened on its own

without the need for a god
to get it going?

The key was in the theory
of black holes.

At the time, physicist Roger Penrose
was working on what happens

when a star collapses
under the force of its own gravity.

Penrose claimed
the star would crush itself

to a tiny point of infinite density

where even time itself
would come to a stop.

He called it a "singularity" -
the heart of a black hole.

When I was doing this work
on gravitation collapse, black holes,

I'd never heard of Stephen,

so I had a little private session,
and he was somebody

who picked up ideas quickly.

He sort of stood out
as being someone

who asked extremely awkward questions.
I do remember that!

I worked relentlessly to see

if I could apply the notion
of a singularity to the entire universe.

Then, suddenly, I had it.

I imagined going backwards
to the beginning

and worked out that,
right at the start,

the universe
would have been a singularity too.

Here, time stops - you've reached
the true beginning of everything.

There is no previous time in which
the universe could have had a cause.

It spontaneously created itself
in the big bang.

The work that Stephen did
basically showed there was

a singular state
which couldn't have come

from a previous universe.

So you could say it is a theory which
tells you the universe had a beginning.

By addressing
the question of creation

that physicists had avoided,

I had controversially shown
the laws of nature suggest

there is no need for a creator or a god.

The universe just
came into existence all by itself.

My findings about the big bang
and the possible beginning

of the universe gave me the results
I needed to enhance my PhD.

I applied for a research fellowship

at Gonville and Caius College
which proved successful.

The money from the fellowship meant
that Jane and I could get married,

which we did in July 1965.

We had the maximum
number of guests in the tiny chapel.

Stephen was walking with a stick
and he was losing strength in his arms

and we went off for our honeymoon
to upstate New York

to a physics conference
at Cornell University

and there I got to know
that a goddess in Stephen's life,

with whom I was sharing the marriage,
was physics!

STEPHEN'. After returning
from our honeymoon,

Jane and I bought a house

in Little St Mary's Lane
in the centre of Cambridge.

In March 1966,
I completed and submitted

my PhD thesis,
with the help of Jane,

who had spent many painstaking hours
at the typewriter, typing it up.

The findings in my thesis greatly enhanced
my reputation in cosmology.

Stephen's profile
certainly did, I think, rocket.

It's important to know
that there was a big bang

because that governs our cosmology.

It's also important to know
what it was like

and why it was like what it was like,

because when you trace back
everything in nature

you get ultimately to the big bang,

and the fact that it was
a singular state

is very much part of that understanding.

Stephen, I'll just do a quick recap, um...
of my PhD, yeah? That's fine, yeah?

STEPHEN'. My early work went some way
to answering

how our universe began,

but there is still
plenty more to find out.

Brane-world black holes should radiate
if they aren't extreme, but slowly.

At Cambridge, I mentor a new generation
of cosmologists

who are tackling ever-tougher questions.

It's this work that I enjoy the most.

You might as well say
the Schwarzschild solution doesn't exist

because it radiates.

Well, I'll have to think about it.

He's in the office every day
and, I mean, it's basically

for us PhD students.
It's great - I mean, he's there for us

if we want him to, kind of, right, so, no,
no, I mean, it's... it's a great privilege.

STEPHEN'. I have always wanted
to share my enthusiasm and excitement.

There's nothing like
the eureka moment

of discovering something
that no-one knew before.

I won't compare it to sex,
but it lasts longer.

My next major eureka moment
happened

when I was least expecting it.

In the autumn of 1970,

I had been concentrating
my research on black holes.

By now, Jane and I had two children -

Robert, aged three years,
and Lucy, who had just been born.

One evening in November,
as I was getting ready for bed,

an idea charged through my brain.

Only cosmologists would truly grasp it,

but it would greatly enhance
my reputation.

I was sitting
on one side of the bed

and Stephen was sitting
on the other side of the bed

tussling with his buttons

and this was one evening
when he took longer about it than usual.

So I finished feeding the baby

and then he said...

think I've solved a problem. "

STEPHEN'. Suddenly, I had a revelation
about what happens

when two black holes collide and merge.

I realised that the surface area
of the new black hole

could only get bigger -
it could never decrease in size.

This may sound like
an obscure discovery,

but it revealed some fundamental
properties of the universe.

Even though few physicists
could understand it at the time,

for me, it was very exciting.

I was writing the rule book
for black holes.

Now my voice would really be heard.

I knew he'd done something
very important,

so I was absolutely thrilled

and this, of course, made his name
in a big way in physics -

he'd been recognised
as somebody with great potential,

but now he really had
a discovery to his name.

STEPHEN'. By the early 1970s,
my career in cosmology

and my understandings of the universe
were beginning to blossom.

But as my mind grew in confidence

my body was going
into a rapid decline.

At home, I was reluctant
to ask for help from outsiders

and was relying upon Jane
more and more to help me

get up in the morning,
get dressed and get to work.

And when I got to Cambridge
I needed my students to help me too.

Are we signing this?

Yes.

I first met Stephen

in 1972 at Cambridge
when I became his PhD student.

He was in a wheelchair,
but a push wheelchair,

and so I also had a role in helping him -
with eating

and moving around and having coffee
and tea and things like that,

so it was a rather unusual relationship.

In those days, Stephen, of course,
was still speaking with his voice,

but his voice was still weak,

so it wasn't so easy to hear
what he was saying.

And, indeed,
when I travelled with Stephen,

I would often be acting
as an interpreter,

so Stephen would say something

and if the person he was speaking to
couldn't understand,

I would then repeat it.

STEPHEN'. Although I was becoming
increasingly trapped

inside my dysfunctioning body,
fortunately my mind was unaffected.

I had a new big question
I felt compelled to find the answer to.

My reputation in the field of black holes
was established

as we entered a golden age.

But my next discovery
would throw

all of cosmologists' findings to date
up in the air.

The calculations I was working on

in valved what happened to particles
on the edge of a black hole

that were sucked in and disappeared.

To my great surprise,

I found that some particles
could escape the black hole,

which seemed to make a mockery
of the known laws of physics.

At first, I thought
this must be a mistake.

I do remember
when he was working on this problem

and, indeed, I even remember
when he told me he was working out

the quantum effects of these black holes
and he seemed to be getting

this flux of particles coming out.

When Stephen's
thinking about a problem

he will become
obviously obsessed with it.

It was a very intense period.

It was when he could be surrounded
by children

and not notice what was going on,
because he was like Rodin's Thinker

with his head in his hands,

often accompanied by Wagner
blaring out from the loudspeakers.

It used to drive me spare!

Finally, after months
of exhaustive work,

I found what I was looking for.

Contrary to all previously held theories
on black holes,

I discovered
that they must emit particles,

like a hot body losing heat.

This "evaporation" meant, in theory,

a black hole could eventually
disappear.

I announced my findings
on St Valentine's Day in 1974

at a cosmology conference in Oxford,
to a packed audience.

He came to an end.

And there was absolute silence
in the lecture hall...

...and I can see it now -
the chairman of the lecture

jumped to his feet
and instead of saying,

"Oh, I must thank Professor Hawking
for his remarkable lecture,"

he said, "This is preposterous!
I have never heard anything like it!"

The whole place was abuzz.

People couldn't believe
what they had heard.

My controversial discovery

initially shocked
the world of physics...

...but eventually it became accepted
and known as Hawking radiation.

I am proud to have discovered it.

This was a remarkably important
result because it was a result which...

unified relativity theory
and quantum theory and thermodynamics.

And physics is really
all about unifying ideas.

These three subjects
seemed to be brought together

and this was the first time we'd seen
that kind of unification.

Every now and then in physics,
you get a result which is...

it's so beautiful, it really is
like rolling candy on the tongue.

Oh, I was enormously proud...

enormously proud
of what Stephen had achieved.

After! announced my theory
of Hawking radiation

and a later discovery
of exploding black holes,

a procession of international awards
followed.

In the spring of 1974,
I was inducted into the Royal Society,

one of the most prestigious
bodies of scientists.

My name now sat alongside
Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

A year later, I received
the Gold Medal for Science,

from Pope Paul VI.

Aged 32, I was thrilled to have
such high-profile awards to my name

and exciting new opportunities beckoned.

- # All the leaves are brown
- # All the leaves are brown

- # And the sky is grey
- # And the sky is grey

- # I've been for a walk
- # I've been for a walk

- # on a winter's day
- # on a winter's day

- # I'd be safe and warm
- # I'd be safe and warm

- #11'! was in LA
- #11'! was in LA- #

In 7.974,
doors started to open for me- -.

...and I was invited
on a visiting professorship

to the California Institute of Technology
in Los Angeles.

This meant moving with the whole family
for the academic year

and the lure of the American West Coast
was irresistible.

We were in the midst
of a revolution

in the application of quantum physics
to black holes.

I was simply hoping
to have a year in which

the result would be better science
done by Caltech scientists,

by my research group and others

and better science done by Stephen.

STEPHEN'. Life in California was
very different from Cambridge.

I now had a large salary
and a big house

just a stone's throw from the university.

Well, America could have been
on another planet.

We were living in the lap of luxury,

no expense spared to make us welcome,

and this great gift
of an electric wheelchair

provided for Stephen's use.

Yet, although we had all
the mod cons that America could offer us,

it was becoming clear that the demands
of home life on Jane

were becoming too intense.

Looking after two young children

and trying to cope
with my ever-increasing disabilities

were causing too much strain.

I could not see my way through

what it was going to demand of me...

...and this wonderful idea came to me -

if we were going
to go to California

and the students were
going to come too,

why didn't we offer them
a bed in our house

in return for some help
with Stephen?

Of course,
it's not the normal relationship

between a student
and the PhD supervisor,

but, for me, that was a good deal
because I lived rent free

in exchange for sort of helping
Stephen out around the home,

you know, at bath times and helping
with meals and things like that.

STEPHEN'. But the excitement
of a new life in California

was harshly interrupted
by my motor neurone disease.

The physical symptoms took
an irreversible turn for the worse.

That was the year in which
he lost the use of his hands.

When he arrived,
he could still write equations,

though with some difficulty.

By the end of the year, he couldn't.

So it was... in terms of
his physical development,

it was a more difficult period.

On the other hand,
in terms of his mental development,

as he gradually lost
the use of his hands,

he further developed
his unique ways of thinking

by manipulating shapes
and topologies in his head

and became even more advanced
than the rest of us.

By losing
the finer dexterity of my hands,

I was forced to travel through
the universe in my mind

and try to visualise
the ways in which it worked.

He could move at lightning speed
across the frontiers of knowledge

and see things
that nobody else could see.

The disability forced him to carry himself
in new ways, new directions.

STEPHEN'. Turning problems over
in my mind has been my main method

of discovery for nearly half my life now.

While all around me
people have buzzed away,

deep in conversation,

I have often been transported afar,

lost inside my own thoughts, trying
to fathom how the universe works.

When we returned from California
in the summer of 1975,

much of the future,
living with my illness, seemed uncertain.

So Jane and I took comfort
in the security of a happy family life...

...and, to make home life easier,

we realised my disabilities
meant that we needed

a student living with us full-time.

I knew that Stephen Hawking was
a brilliant scientist

and I was told that he was
severely disabled

and I was told that his voice
was very weak,

so it would probably take about a week

before, you know, I could understand
what he was saying.

Of course,
because of Stephen's circumstances,

you could say
no day was really normal.

Stephen had these massive batteries
that... in his wheelchair

and, of course, he had spares,
and so I loaded as many as I could

on the bottom
of Stephen's wheelchair

and Stephen didn't know
that I had loaded it down so heavily

and I didn't want to have to carry
the thing, so he starts up the hill

and then I see him turning the corner
and he's about...

1 O... about 20 metres away
and I see him slowly tipping backwards

and he fell over into the bushes.

Yeah, it was somewhat alarming to see
the master of gravity being overcome

by the Earth's gravitational field
and falling into the... into the bushes.

I went up to retrieve him
and he was, of course, quite upset

and it was perhaps good

that I couldn't understand
all that he said on that occasion.

I could have caught that
if I realised it was gonna stop.

Although
my increasing disabilities

were greatly affecting my life
more and more,

I was fiercely reluctant
to accept nursing care.

I was convinced that I could build
a team of people around me

who could care for me
in their own way.

We didn't have any nurses

at all in the department - that was part
of my role. I would look after him.

- You'd like to reply to that one?
- Mm-hm.

Well, I had to wipe his nose,

comb his hair for him
if it was falling down into his eyes

and I could see that when he was eating
or drinking

this could cause a problem
and a very big one for me

because I didn't have
any nursing training whatsoever.

He would have these coughing fits
that would be quite severe

and, you know, you'd sort of think he was
gonna choke and die at any moment.

I felt responsible to try to give him
the best care that I could,

but it was scary thinking
what might happen to him.

One night Stephen had
the most horrendous choking fit

and I just didn't know what to do

and everything just shook,

windows rattled, doors shook.

It was the most terrifying experience

and it could have been critical.

Although I was able to live
and work as I wanted,

I was never really able to understand

the strain it was placing
on the people around me...

...especially my wife, Jane.

I was beginning to feel that there
were two faces to our situation...

...one was the public image,
the wunderkind of physics, um...

who had overcome motor neurone disease,

who was whizzing round the world
in his wheelchair

to receive honours and medals,

and the other side, the other face,
was the home situation,

where sometimes the illness forced us
into our own little black hole.

The decline in my health was
a stark reminder that time was against me.

Yet despite the pressures
on my family

I was determined to realise
a lifelong ambition

by writing a popular book
about how the universe had begun.

I wanted the book to be read

by millions of people around the world,
like a bestselling airport novel.

I did not think it would work.

I did not think it would work
because basically

if you look at all the other
books in airports

there are none like that!

STEPHEN'. However, I felt sure
that the mass market

would want to know about
how the universe began.

By 1984,
I had completed the first chapter.

There was great interest in him.

He was a great public figure,

so actually every publisher in town
was interested in the book.

I guess we had a contract
ready for him to sign

and I had heard that he was
going to be in Chicago,

so I was there and waiting,

and then this car pulls
into the parking lot

and this gentleman gets out
and he goes back to the passenger door

and scoops out what looks like a kind of
life-size, broken doll into his arms,

and brings it back to the wheelchair

and kind of gently eases the doll
into place

and suddenly
the doll becomes animated.

As soon as that hand
is on the controls,

the thing literally kicks into life, spins
around two, three times and takes off.

And then Brian shouts to me,
I've gotten out of my car,

he shouts, "Is that you?
Is that Peter Guzzardi?"

and I said, "Yes, it's... it's me!"

and he says, "Well, quick, follow us -
that's Professor Hawking!"

I signed up with Peter

and set to work completing
the first draft of my book.

I tried to simplify the physics
as best I could, and by the end

I was pleased and felt
it was in pretty good shape.

But Peter wasn't convinced.

I was pretty disappointed, yeah.

I thought, "This is gonna be
really difficult. "

But I just decided we'd made
a substantial commitment to it

and, by God,
we were gonna do this book,

so let's just start slogging and then
maybe lightning would strike,

or something wonderful would happen.

Lightning did indeed strike,

but not in the way
that Peter and I were hoping.

That summer,
I had taken a break from rewriting,

to travel to Switzerland on holiday...

...but while I was there
I caught a chest infection

that developed into pneumonia
and quickly became very serious.

I was put into a drug-induced coma
and onto a life-support machine.

The doctors thought I was so far gone,

they offered to Jane
to turn off the machine.

But she refused.

Finally, Jane insisted
that I was flown back to Cambridge.

I remember very vividly

walking through the doors
and being really

quite rocked by what I saw
when I got in there

and I realised that Stephen was
really very, very ill.

Things were not looking good.

He could have died.

We were just told
that he couldn't breathe

and, of course, we knew how weak he was
at that time, and he had been ill before

and we all knew
that he was on borrowed time.

STEPHEN'. The weeks of intensive care
were the darkest of my life.

I felt I had always fought my illness
so hard that I was not prepared

to give in so easily.

Slowly, the drugs began to work
and the infection passed,

but the surgeons had to perform a
tracheotomy to allow me to breathe,

which made a small incision
in my windpipe

and connected me to a ventilator
via the hole in my throat.

As a result, I was now robbed
of the ability to talk.

I faced a life
unable to properly communicate.

It was a very worrying time
for everyone around him

and you're thinking, "Do you think
you'll ever be able to talk again?"

or, "How will you work
if you can't talk?"

So, yes, it was a very bleak time.

All hopes of finishing my book,
and perhaps even my career,

seemed to be over.

It was very tense for everybody.
It was incredibly tense.

It was difficult to think that Stephen
was going to come out of there

and be OK.

As the weeks of my recovery
turned into months,

it became obvious to me, and everyone
around me, that being on a ventilator

meant that I needed constant care
and monitoring to keep alive.

This was a very big realisation that
things were going to dramatically change

and that this was going to be needing
24-hour-a-day nursing care.

Their lives were never, ever
going to be the same again.

Once nurses came into the house...
life changed.

And that was very difficult
for all of us - for me, for the children.

Home was no longer home.

There was no privacy, no privacy,

because the walls
were listening to everything.

Despite the intrusions
on family life,

with the nurses' help,
I grew stronger.

Yet I still felt trapped
inside my body.

For a time, at home,
I could communicate

only by raising my eyebrows

when someone pointed to letters
on a card.

All thoughts of work
and finishing my book grew distant.

But then, quite unexpectedly,
a glimmer of hope

came from across the water.

I got a call from a physicist
and he said, "I know

"you're working on computer systems
for people with ALS."

He says, "I've got someone in England,

"he's a professor of physics,

"who lost the ability to speak
and he needs a system. "

The system was called Equalizer

and the top part of the screen
was a set of letters,

rows of letters, and then the bottom part
of the screen was rows of words -

36 very frequently used words,

so he could choose
the top part or the bottom part.

He learned that very quickly
and I was blown away by it.

He was... He was scanning
just amazingly fast.

STEPHEN'. I had enough movement
in my right hand

to be able to click the computer system
and write the words I wanted.

Finally, I was free
to communicate again.

I was keen to make up the lost time
that my illness had forced upon me.

I had a stack of notes
from Peter Guzzardi

suggesting changes
and clarifications to my book,

but I needed practical help
with the rewrite at my end,

someone who could act
as a go-between.

...is keeping the graphic
as simple as we can.

The people in the States

were speaking on a loudspeaker phone
in his office

and Stephen was writing, using
his new computer system on the screen

and then you would say
what he was saying over the phone.

We were just sort of
cobbling it together,

I think, is probably the right term.

I had no idea what was going on
on Stephen's side of this,

where it seems that he was persuading
Stephen that this was OK,

helping Stephen off the walls
if Stephen started to think,

"Why the hell
am I spending all this time

"making this idiot
understand this basic stuff?"

After months of work,
the rewrite was complete.

None of us really knew
whether the book would be liked

and would sell as we all hoped for.

All we could do now
was give it a title -

A Brief History Of Time -
send it off to the printers and wait.

But to everyone's surprise
the book sold copy after copy

and very quickly
bookshops were selling out.

When it hit the bestseller list,
you're obviously surprised.

It was a pleasant surprise
and it certainly was a surprise.

I don't think you'll find anybody -
maybe I'm wrong - who'll say,

"'Oh, yes, we knew all along
this was going to be a major hit. "

I had no expectation
that it was going to be

the number-one bestselling book
in the world.

I mean, not just here,
but in Germany, Slovenia,

France, Italy - everywhere in the world
there was the hope

that someone had found
the mystery of life.

And from then on it was just a race
to keep the book in print

and marching towards
a million copies sold.

You know, it was very gratifying!

Er, you know, in the 38 years
that I've been in this business,

um... I don't think
I've ever had a book

that stayed at the top
of the bestseller list that long.

Well, I was amazed
at how well it did. I think it worked.

He inspired people.

He gave people some overall sense
of the birth of the universe

and it made this subject become
a subject of conversation

among people in all walks of life.

Professor Stephen Hawking's book

A Brief History Of Time,
an unlikely

but successful
publishing phenomenon...

A Brief History Of Time
has sold about eight million copies...

A popular book
about his theories

is already topping
the American bestsellers' list...

The hugely
successful A Brief History Of Time

by Stephen Hawking...

A Brief History Of Time
stayed in the bestseller list

for over four years

and entered into The Guinness Book
Of Records for doing so.

To date, over 10 million copies
have been sold worldwide.

Over the next few years,
a lot of fuss was made about my book.

I became famous nationally
and around the world,

as it was translated
into 40 different languages.

...delighted to welcome
Professor Stephen Hawking.

STEPHEN'. I was invited onto chat shows...

Well, I think people do think of you
as a genius,

not just as a disabled genius.

- and I've made
a cameo appearance on Star Trek,

my favourite sci-fl' show.

- You are bluffing.
- Wrong again, Albert!

I enjoyed the media attention

and witnessing everyday people
getting more involved in understanding

the physics of our universe.

But soon the press wanted to know
more about me, my illness

and my family life.

He wanted this worldwide celebrity,
he enjoys that.

Part of his whole outlook on life
and his science is that it's fun

and celebrity was fun

and he embraced it

in a way that was not necessarily
very good for the family, the children.

So this was a further real problem
in the marriage.

We were engulfed and swept away

by this great wave
of fame and fortune...

...and I have to say

that really it all got rather too much
for me to cope with

and I suppose that's when we ceased
to be as happy as we had been

and when the marriage broke up

I felt as if a rug,

not just had been pulled up
from under my feet,

but the earth had opened up
under that rug and swallowed me up,

because the marriage had
been my raison d'étre.

And it took me quite a little while
to recover my sense of my own identity.

It was clear
that my life and Jane's

were beginning to follow
different paths.

In 1990 we separated,
and were divorced in 1995.

In the same year, I announced
my engagement to Elaine Mason

and married again.

Elaine had been one of my nurses

from the start
of my 24-hour wraparound care.

Over the years, we had become extremely
close as Jane and I drifted apart,

each seeking comfort and love
through new relationships.

Elaine became closer to Stephen
than any of the other nurses.

When he travelled, he would prefer
to have her with him over the others.

It became a close relationship.

STEPHEN'. My marriage to Elaine
was passionate and tempestuous.

She saved my life
on several occasions

and we were together for 11 years,
before divorcing in 2006.

The low point was when the press
printed unsubstantiated allegations

that I had been the victim
of domestic violence.

To my mind, this was
a gross invasion of our privacy

and it was an extremely hurtful
and damaging time for us both.

Unfortunately, being in the public eye
can have its drawbacks.

Living a very public life does, however,
have its upsides too.

At work, I am often visited
by famous people who share

an interest in space
and the universe we live in.

Sometimes, even astronauts drop by.

My voice is listened to
because I did something 43 years ago

and I have the sense of humans

reaching outward and succeeding,

but I believe
that he is valued more because

he has the pure analytical
combined with

the philosophical

that comes from his understanding

of the beginnings and the ends
of the universe.

STEPHEN'. I have often dreamt about
travelling through space myself.

Recently, I got closer by
experiencing a zero gravity flight.

I t was also a moment that temporarily
stripped me of my disability -

a feeling of true freedom.

I believe the pioneering efforts
of the early astronauts like Buzz

need to be taken onto the next level.

I am convinced that one day

humans will have to colonise
other planets in order to survive.

Space travel will become
an everyday necessity.

Until then, I hope to be
one of the first ordinary people

to blast off into space.

But I will need a little help.

I just couldn't think
of anybody in the world

that we'd rather send to space
than Stephen Hawking,

and, you know, we haven't offered
anybody a free ticket,

but it was the one person in the world
that we felt, you know,

we'd love to invite you to space.

Pressure check.

And it was incredible when he accepted
and I went up and saw him that day

and he told me to hurry up

and get the spaceship built
because he wasn't going to live forever,

and hopefully next year we'll take him up
and I think that, you know,

he feels that if he goes into space
personally, he can... he can lead the way.

STEPHEN'. My hopes for space travel
have been with me throughout my life.

But as my wheels are still firmly
planted here on Planet Earth,

I will keep on dreaming.

As I am now considered
a so-called "famous" person,

more and more of my time is taken up
with my public life.

For this, I rely greatly
upon my team around me.

You are really
the gatekeeper in this role.

You get the general fan mail,
hero-worshipping him, really,

then you get people who are obsessed

with religion and God and the fact that
Professor Hawking doesn't appear to have

a god as such that they can,
um, feel comfortable about,

so you get a huge range
of what we call the "god letters",

and then you get letters
from the disabled,

serious scientists - mostly people

full of admiration for Professor Hawking
and what he has achieved.

He is a great iconic figure

and he enjoys his public appearances

and it's great
that, you know, he's still very engaged

with everything that surrounds him.

So if you want to explore
the inside of a black hole,

choose a big one.

People have searched for many black holes
of this mass

but have, so far, not found any.

This is a pity because, if they had,
I would have got a Nobel Prize.

If you had asked me 40 years ago

if I ever thought I would be talking
in front of a sell-out crowd

and be a part of popular culture,
I would have laughed.

But if my getting involved
with the zeitgeist that is upon us

has encouraged people to question
our universe, then I am OK.

Stephen Hawking!

- The world's smartest man.
- What are you doing here?

If you are looking for trouble,
you've found it.

Yeah, just try me, you... Oh!

He's willing to teach people
in whatever way he has to teach people -

you can't take yourself too seriously
no matter how intelligent

or how important the work you're doing is.

- This is Jim's phone.
- It's for me!

- It's such an honour.... It's for you.
- Hello!

Whenever I do a talk show,
I'm trying to think of ways to do things

that are completely different
and completely ridiculous.

Most people see Dumb & Dumber
and they assume that that's who I am,

so I thought, "Well, wouldn't it be
wonderful to, like, partner up

"with the smartest man on the Earth?"

Oh, excuse me!

Hello.

Oh, hi, Stephen Hawking!
I can't believe it!

He was wonderful.
He was just fantastic.

I was... I was expecting him
to be so serious about himself

and, er, I think it was a relief for him

to, er... to completely make fun
of the whole thing.

It's amazing.

Yeah, I know.

He did a great job of doing the lines
that I'd written

and... and, er, and he was just gung ho
the whole time.

OK.

Oh!

No, you're a genius!

No! You are!

After we did the routine,
we kind of struck up a friendship,

so I was invited to his home

and one of the funny highlights
of the night

was that, er... was that
while we were having dinner

I asked him, you know,
just for a picture,

"Could you run over my foot
with your wheelchair?"

And that... So I have a picture of me
grimacing in agony and stuff,

so it was wonderful, wonderful to be
there, wonderful to talk to him

and ask him
important questions like,

"How many Higgs boson
does it take to screw in a light bulb?'

And, er, I think
he's still struggling with that.

Look out!

It has been a lot of fun
and also very strange

to see myself depicted in so many ways,

but perhaps the strangest
is to have had

part of my early life
portrayed by an actor.

I felt a huge onus of responsibility
to get that part of his life right.

There was so much that
happened to him.

It's a terrifying prospect

to have a completely functioning mind
inside a body

that locks you in,
that keeps you stationary.

One of the things I wanted to get right
was to show the stages

of the progression of his condition and
where the instability and fear came from.

The very obvious details, such as being
at the top of a flight of stairs,

that suddenly becomes the most
enormous obstacle,

being on any sort of uneven ground -
those feelings of vulnerability.

He's incredibly stoic.

I think that was probably the case
when he was younger as well.

I think he rolled up his sleeves
and got on with it,

and look at the results.

I mean, it's self-evident -

the man became, er, a spokesperson
for the most complex ideas.

Right, Stephen, we're going to put

your hat on you, so you don't get wet.

The straps go round,
so it holds the hat on.

- Look at you!
- He thinks we're mean.

"Have you got a hat?"
"Yeah, gangster hat. "

It's the don!

STEPHEN'. One advantage of being
a public figure

is being asked to do special things.

Today I am centre stage at the opening
ceremony of the Paralympics Games

and it's an honour to do so.

Ever since the dawn of civilisation,

people have craved for an understanding
of the underlying order of the world.

There ought to be something very special
about the boundary conditions

of the universe...

...and what can be more special than that
there is no boundary?

And there should be no boundary
to human endeavour.

The Paralympic Games are all about
transforming our perception of the world.

We are all different.

There is no such thing as a standard
or run-of-the-mill human being,

but we share the same human spirit.

However difficult life may seem,

there is always something you can do
and succeed at.

The Games provide an opportunity
for athletes to excel,

to stretch themselves
and become outstanding in their field.

So let us together celebrate
excellence, friendship and respect.

Good luck to you all.

Oh! Goodness!

Oh!

STEPHEN'. Having lived on this wonderful
planet for over 71 years,

I feel my proudest achievement
has been to inspire people

to think about the cosmos
and our place in it.

Since I believe
there is no afterlife,

I think it's important to realise

we only have a very short time alive
and should make the best of it.

Today, I enjoy time together
with family and friends...

...and despite my disabilities

I'll always keep wondering
about the mysteries of the universe.

Stephen's been ill since he was 20.

You come to terms with
the impending bereavement

and then suddenly find
that it's not that impending after all.

I'm sure there's plenty more
he'd like to know about.

Think how awful it would be
to come to the end of questions.

Stephen will carry on until they...
push him underground.

You... You don't just stop your mind.

Stephen's always had
this determination to survive, I guess,

and every time Stephen gets
critically ill, I always think

"Oh, dear, I hope," you know,
"he's going to get through this time,"

and he always does.

He's just got this tremendous
determination to live

and I... and I do think there is
such a thing as the will to live.

There are several components
to his long survival.

One is
that he's, by a very large margin,

the most stubborn person
I've ever met.

He is one of those very few people

who can see far beyond
the borders of current knowledge

and see how things really work
and set the directions

for other people's research
and attempts to prove him right or wrong.

To recover from a broken marriage,
it was very, very difficult.

At first, we were in touch...

...but then it got very, very difficult,

but, lately, we have been able
to associate.

I call on him
perhaps once a fortnight.

All those years with Stephen
were a huge part of my life.

They were my young years.

They were my children.

And I can't just wipe those
from the record, and I wouldn't want to.

It would be self-destructive
to wipe those away

and I'm very, very proud of what
Stephen has done.

STEPHEN'. Life has thrown at me
both good times and bad.

Perhaps it is human nature
that we adapt and survive.

As for me,

I have lived with the prospect
of an early death most of my life.

I am not afraid of dying,
but I'm in no hurry to die.

I have so much I want to do
and find out first.

So, for now...

...goodbye and thank you for coming
on a journey through my world.