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Hawking turns 70 with 'a brief history of mine'
Source: Agencies |
January 9, 2012, Monday
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The world's best known living scientist, Stephen Hawking, was too ill to attend his 70th birthday celebrations yesterday but in a recorded speech urged people to "look up at the stars" and be curious about the universe.
Hawking, the author of the international bestseller "A Brief History of Time," was diagnosed with motor neuron disease in 1963 and told he had barely two years to live. He has since been hailed as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Einstein.
In the speech played out at a symposium in his honor at Cambridge University, he said his excitement and enthusiasm for his subject drove him on, and urged others to seek out the same inspiration.
"Remember to look up at the stars, not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious," Hawking said in the speech he had been due to give in person.
Hawking's plans to speak at Cambridge, where as a PhD student he first became fascinated with cosmology and the state of the universe, were scrapped after his doctor advised him he was too ill to attend the event, officials said.
Hawking had recently been in hospital and was discharged last Friday, Cambridge's Vice-Chancellor Leszek Borysiewicz said.
"Unfortunately ... his recovery has not been fast enough for him to be with us today," Borysiewicz told a disappointed audience of scientists, students and celebrities at the event.
Almost completely paralyzed by a form of motor neuron disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which attacks the nerves that control muscles and gradually stops them functioning, Hawking is wheelchair-bound and uses a computerized voice synthesizer to speak.
Hawking, the author of the international bestseller "A Brief History of Time," was diagnosed with motor neuron disease in 1963 and told he had barely two years to live. He has since been hailed as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Einstein.
In the speech played out at a symposium in his honor at Cambridge University, he said his excitement and enthusiasm for his subject drove him on, and urged others to seek out the same inspiration.
"Remember to look up at the stars, not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious," Hawking said in the speech he had been due to give in person.
Hawking's plans to speak at Cambridge, where as a PhD student he first became fascinated with cosmology and the state of the universe, were scrapped after his doctor advised him he was too ill to attend the event, officials said.
Hawking had recently been in hospital and was discharged last Friday, Cambridge's Vice-Chancellor Leszek Borysiewicz said.
"Unfortunately ... his recovery has not been fast enough for him to be with us today," Borysiewicz told a disappointed audience of scientists, students and celebrities at the event.
Almost completely paralyzed by a form of motor neuron disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which attacks the nerves that control muscles and gradually stops them functioning, Hawking is wheelchair-bound and uses a computerized voice synthesizer to speak.
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