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Hawking
Unwell Hawking forced to miss his own 70th birthday celebrations
A recorded speech revealed how the acclaimed physicist had been the subject of a bet that he would never amount to anything when he was younger.
PHYSICIST STEPHEN HAWKING was forced to miss a symposium being held to mark his 70th birthday because of ill health.
In place of the man himself, a recorded speech was played to those who attended the event at Cambridge University, BBC News reports. Hawking has the degenerative condition motor neuron disease and had only been discharged from hospital on Friday.
Leading scientists, businessmen and members of the public including entrepreneur Richard Branson and model Lily Cole were in attendance to hear Hawking’s speech, entitled ‘A Brief History of Mine’ – a play on his seminal book a A Brief History of Time.
Hawking’s book has sold 10 million copies worldwide and earned him recognition for his ideas and understanding of quantum physics and so-called black holes.
The Guardian reports that in the speech Hawking revealed that he did not learn to read properly until he was eight and that school friends had bet he “would never come to anything”.
He said his main message was “be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”
Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at age 21 just as he started his PhD at Cambridge. Experts say he has defied medical science by continuing to work to the age of 70.
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