SALUTE TO STEPHEN HAWKING

 //2018, MARCH 16 - மீள்பதிவு//

SALUTE TO STEPHEN HAWKING

Twinkle of the brightest star

Flapping wings black hole to brains

Wheel chaired universe

Good bye Stephen William Hawking

NESAMITRAN (நேச மித்ரன்)

Poet Nesamithran’s profound goodbye to Stephen Hawking is given above.

* I happened to read a piece of writing by a well-known writer of Tamil criticizing those who hail Stefan Hawking and giving him a rockstar welcome.

Why not? and in fact he deserves much more than a rockstar.

And, The writer has attributed our respect for Stefan Hawking to the slave mentality of people the world over with respect to the Whites. He further says that we give Stefan Hawking the credit of so many scientific inventions which in fact were done in Indian soil centuries and centuries ago.

But, I feel that the world's respect for Stefan Hawking is for the way he had led a meaningful life despite his acute physical inability.

How can anyone ignore this fact- and, in particular, a writer?

And, here I remember the anecdote which observes that when Helen Keller was speaking and writing about her disability and the resultant discomforts, many welcomed it, but when she started to give forth her views on the prevailing social climate it was not that much welcomed.

This is what I perceive as prejudiced mentality of the powerful - class.

In this case, the so-called normal ones. This powerful class can have different dimensions and denominations.

Unfortunately many amidst us psychologically belong to this class.

Latha Ramakrishnan

SALUTE TO STEPHEN HAWKING

(*Thanks to Lifehack)

Stephen Hawking’s life is remarkable in many ways.

Firstly, because he was a brilliant physicist and has made groundbreaking discoveries regarding the cosmos, black holes and other unexplored aspects of the universe we live in.

Secondly, he had survived motor neurone disease (ALS) which was diagnosed when he was 21 years old. He was told he had a few years to live and now, at the age of 73, he was very much alive and as mentally active as ever. He had been immobilized since his twenties and then lost the power of speech and he now spoke via a computerized synthesizer.

He was born on Jan 8th in 1942 which was the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo. At school, he only managed to get average grades. He was curious about how clocks worked and regularly took them to pieces but was not very good at reassembling them!

His studies at Oxford were disturbed by his rowing practice which occupied six afternoons a week. He was the coxswain who steered the boat and kept the rowers safe. The only problem was that his studies suffered and he admitted that he had to cut some corners to pass his exams!

His studies and research brought him countless and prizes. It is interesting to know that he held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for 30 years. Isaac Newton held the same position way back in 1669.

Hawking’s relationship with his wife Jane is movingly portrayed in the film The Theory of Everything. When asked what he thought of the film, Hawking replied that there was not enough science in it while his ex wife thought that there was not enough emotion.

Stephen Hawking’s life is an astonishing story of a man who faced enormous odds and went on to become one of the world’s most famous scientists..