In 1963, a 21-year-old Cambridge PhD student began tripping, slurring his words, and losing control of his hands. Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — a progressive motor neuron disease with no cure. His doctors gave him approximately two years to live.
That prognosis was spectacularly wrong. Hawking lived for another 55 years, dying in March 2018 at the age of 76. During those decades, he made fundamental contributions to theoretical physics, wrote the bestselling 'A Brief History of Time,' and became perhaps the most recognizable scientist alive.
Hawking's disease progressed slowly compared to most ALS cases — a variant now believed to be related to juvenile-onset ALS, which has a longer progression. By the late 1960s he was in a wheelchair. By the mid-1970s he could no longer write. By 1985, after an emergency tracheotomy left him unable to speak, he used a speech synthesizer — eventually controlled by a single cheek muscle.
Rather than ending his career, the diagnosis arguably intensified Hawking's scientific focus. He had been a capable but not exceptional student at Oxford; the illness gave him urgency and purpose. His work on black hole radiation (Hawking radiation, 1974), the singularity theorems (with Roger Penrose), and the no-boundary proposal for the universe's origin were all produced after his diagnosis.
Hawking's life raises profound questions about the relationship between physical limitation and intellectual achievement. His extraordinary ability to perform complex mathematical calculations entirely in his head — a skill he developed of necessity — gave him insights that pencil-and-paper mathematicians sometimes missed.
よくある質問
What disease did Stephen Hawking have?
Hawking had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a progressive motor neuron disease. He was diagnosed at 21. His variant progressed unusually slowly — most ALS patients survive 2-5 years; Hawking lived another 55 years.
How did Hawking communicate?
Hawking originally spoke normally, then used a voice synthesizer. After a 1985 tracheotomy, he used a computer program controlled first by hand joystick, then by cheek muscle as his condition progressed. His American-accented synthesized voice became iconic.