My “Stephen Hawking”
My tryst with the persona started with GK books featuring the scientist’s photo and in the pages of the book “World famous scientists” given to me by my grandfather. As a child with severe communication issues, I used to look at awe the person who defied his own shortcomings, worse than mine, to be a scientist. Most importantly, a person driving a computerized wheelchair with only his gestures??
As I entered 10+2, my brain was getting bombarded by particles of Bohr and the duality of de Broglie, and the uncertainty of Heisenberg put me in anxiety. I wanted to know more, the relationship of intricacies of the atoms to the origin of the universe and its features. To give me some much needed “energy bar” to this journey, this book helped me. Bought by my dad in one of his official tours, this is one of the many books that I have gathered and enjoyed reading.
Oh, thanks to him, I could understand what Einstein said through his borrowings from Lorentz, the space time continuum and the general theory of relativity. Thanks to Hawking for writing the book, I finally could understand the relativity of our life too.
Now I still tred the path of physics, as a hobby, receptive to more and more pathbreaking discoveries talked of in the media. While at the same time, my attention riveted more and more to his personal life.
His life wasn't the one anyone would wholly want. Everybody would like to have his genius without his Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, the disease he was suffering from. His sarcasm wasn't understood by all, had 2 failed relationships, and most importantly, couldn't carry out basic human activities in life.
Probably his disability was the one that drove him to isolation, but it was not blank, but the isolation was mindful. It was like putting a bullet through your head, and instead of the splatter of blood and tissues, flowers would come out.
His death is unique for making people having mixed emotions. While some cried in disbelief, others forgot to cry so as to admire the coincidences.
If it weren't for him, we, as commoners, wouldn't have understood black holes and neutron stars and supernovae. Probably we wouldn't have enjoyed the movie “Gravity”. Probably we wouldn't have understood “Interstellar” and the Einstein-Rosen bridges, popularly called wormholes. Probably…!!
Thanks to him, I realised it's okay to have shortcomings, it's okay to not being recognised, it's okay to have contributions which will be considered minuscle by your contemporaries, because you're laying a path for others to follow, and you'll be thanked later, but surely.
P.S. — I don't write obituaries.
Regards,
(P.S. — This was originally posted in my blog on Quora, called the Sandstorm.
Original link — https://the-sandstorm.quora.com/My-Stephen-Hawking?ch=10&share=3726c7c7&srid=uTSo2)
