AFP/London
Scientist Stephen Hawking was forced to miss a scientific debate to mark his 70th birthday yesterday because he was only discharged from hospital two days earlier.As scientists and media gathered at Cambridge University for a symposium to mark Hawking’s birthday, vice-chancellor professor Sir Leszek Borysiewic announced: “Stephen has been unwell and was only discharged from hospital on Friday.”Hawking, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease aged 21, will follow the special symposium on “the state of the universe” via webcast, the vice-chancellor said. Despite spending most of his life in a wheelchair and being able to speak only through a computer, the theoretical physicist’s quest for the secrets of the universe has made him arguably the most famous scientist in the world.When Hawking was diagnosed with the debilitating condition aged 21, he was given only a few years to live, but has defied medical opinion by reaching his eighth decade. “I’m sure my disability has a bearing on why I’m well known,” he once said. “People are fascinated by the contrast between my very limited physical powers, and the vast nature of the universe I deal with.”Much of his work has centred on bringing together relativity (the nature of space and time) and quantum theory (how the smallest particles in the universe behave) to explain the creation of the universe and how it is governed.In 1974, aged just 32, Hawking became one of the youngest fellows of Britain’s prestigious Royal Society. Five years later he became Lucasian professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a post once held by Isaac Newton. His fame moved beyond academia in 1988 with the publication of his book A Brief History of Time, which explained the nature of the universe to non-scientists, and sold millions of copies worldwide. Hawking’s stardom was later cemented in cameos in Star Trek and The Simpsons, where he tells the rotund Homer Simpson that he likes his theory of a “doughnut-shaped universe”, and may have to steal it.As Hawking’s age advances, he could be at risk of losing his famous computerised voice due to the gradual loss of muscle control, his personal assistant said ahead of his birthday. “His speech has got slower and slower and on a bad day he can only manage about one word a minute,” Judith Croasdell said in the Daily Telegraph.“We think it may be because of the deterioration in his cheek muscle. We are looking to improve the situation and he needs to test out new technology.”