Remembering Stephen Hawking on Pi Day

Dr. Stephen Hawking died today, on Pi Day (3.14), having outlived by decades any expectation for someone with ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease).  Trapped inside a failing body lived one of the great minds ever in theoretical physics. In addition to be famous for his theoretical work, that few of us can understand; he got wide-spread attention for his book A Brief History of Time, which attempted to make his theories accessible to a wider world.

Hawking said he wanted to write “the sort of book that would sell in airport bookstores,” but a literary agent (subsequently proved wrong) told him there was little chance of that happening with a book covering such a complex subject. The book ended up selling more than 10 million copies and spent years on the bestseller lists. A Brief Historyshows up on lists also of “most purchased and least read” books that also include Salman Rushdie’s controversial and impenetrable The Satanic Verses. To be fair, though, Hawking’s editors pushed him to simplify the text without dumbing it down and to include the scientist’s sense of humor.

Hawking was also famous for his appearances in popular culture, speaking through his distinctive speech synthesizer. Though Dr. Hawking made numerous television appearances, my favorite will always be when the android Lt. Commander Data called him up on the holodeck on Star Trek: The Next Generation to play poker with Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and himself. (Fun Fact To Know and Tell: Both Newton and Hawking held the position of Lucian professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, 300 years apart.) What great fun to imagine how these brilliant theoretical scientists would have interacted with each other at the card table.