171–180 of 468 posts
It seems somehow unfair to have him taken away in the middle of all that.
EDIT: Fond memories of walking around Cambridge University two decades ago with my cousin, and she casually pointed to a building and said "Oh, Stephen Hawking works in there". Seemed so mundane to think that such important works were going on in some nondescript building that I just happened to be walking past. I always envisaged him working on a totally different plane from the rest of us mere peons.
This deserves a black bar. This man I’m sure inspired almost everyone here in some way. Odd to think he’s dead. I thought he’d live forever...
I read A brief history of time when I was 11. Since then every single time I have reread the book I have found something new. I waited every Monday night for his show into the universe with Stephan Hawkins. He was the reason I became more curious and skeptical about nature of things. My hats off to this amazing conscious being made from stardust.
They did several more parabolas than planned, 8-10 min of weightlessness each time. He loved it. Still images only, but it's great to see him out of his wheelchair and floating in space.
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"At least at the lecture I attended, he live keyed his entire speech. This meant the synthesizer would speak, followed by 20 or 30 seconds of absolute silence as he buffered the next few sentences." He was "typing" one bit at a time? How can he type the entire sentence so quickly?
Yes. Here's some info on his setup. It tracked the motion of his cheek, which he could still control, to stop on a letter. It scanned through the alphabet and he had to pull it up at the right time. http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-computer.html I also just started typing that in present tense ('tracks'...) and had to pull myself up. :(
Interesting!
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Well, two-way communication, sure. But his words and ideas will continue to be communicated for a very long time. He is one of the very rare human beings whose names will never be forgotten.
Arguably he's probably there with Newton, Sagan, Darwin and Einstein