I only met Stephen Hawking twice, both times in the same day. Hawking, who died a few hours ago, was one of the great physicists of any era. He wrote books, was the subject of a major movie about his early life, and of course survived longer than any other amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) sufferer, passing away at 76 while Lou Gehrig didn’t even make it to 40. We’re about to be awash in Hawking tributes, so I want to share with you my short experience of the man and maybe give more depth to his character than we might take away from the evening news.
Several years ago I was booked […]
Everything I know about Stephen Hawking I learned one evening a couple years ago at the old Claremont Hotel on the border between Oakland and Berkeley, California. I was there to give a speech and was late for the gig, so instead of waiting for an elevator I took the stairs down a couple floors in the old wooden hotel. Bursting through the doors at the bottom of the stairs and into the lobby I almost crashed into Stephen Hawking! Killing a world-famous physicist in a wheelchair is not what I wanted to be remembered for so it was lucky I was able to roll a bit to one side and avoid — just barely […]