Stephen Hawking

Commentary by Robert Escandon, Sumner Newscow — I was very sad to learn of the death last week of one of my heroes,  Stephen Hawking.  Plenty of accolades deservedly came to him for his life-achievements in physics and cosmology.  Whether he was the world’s most brilliant scientist is open to debate.  Was he a genius?  Certainly, but there are always competitors for the title of being top of the intellectual tree.  Kip Thorne (ex of Caltech) could equally hold that title as could many other great people of the current day and throughout history.

Robert Escandon

What sets Steven Hawking apart, at least for me, was his courage and tenacity in the face of a mortal illness.  When first diagnosed with ALS, he was in his early twenties and was told his life expectancy was around three to five years during which time he would slowly lose all muscle control.  Such a devastating prognosis is difficult to imagine.  Equally difficult to imagine is that he would go on to lead such an influential life of contribution to mankind until the age of 76.

There is such a wealth of information written about Steven Hawking that my humble little article couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of his achievements.

Did he ever get sentimental about his disabilities?  As far as I can tell from everything I have read about him, the answer is emphatically “no.”  He is quoted as saying: “Life is too short to waste a minute.” So year after year he applied his enormous intellect to theoretical physics and cosmology where his active brain wasn’t stricken with debilitating disease.  He was free to roam in his mind and in his intellect, even as his body was ravaged by illness.  I can’t imagine him giving in to negative thoughts of the “Woe is me” kind and permitting self-pity to overtake him.  His intellect was intact to a level which allowed him to explore the world free of bodily constraints.Of course, another simple but appropriate description of Stephen Hawking would be “courageous.”  Such courage, coupled with astonishing abilities, sets him apart from much of humanity.

While the world in general wages war and nations jostle for influence and power; while we rape the resources of our own little planet and retreat into tribalism and squabble about who gets what share of diminishing resources; the rare great minds look outwards to the cosmos and into the very nature of structure searching for the math that binds everything together.  Hawking often advised that mankind should place a heavy emphasis on establishing planetary outposts as insurance for the survival of the human species.  He frequently talked of the real possibility of a “planetary extinction event” that would take-out humankind.  This might be another collision event like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, or an appalling pandemic due to natural occurrence or to an accidental virus escape from a biological weapons research establishment.  And then there is the ever present threat of nuclear Armageddon.

It is time for mankind to follow the inspiration of the great minds that have preceded us and put aside the petty and ridiculous things that concern us of the here and now.  Above all, we need reminding daily that we are just bags of organic matter that survive for an average of around 70 years before giving our molecules back to the earth.

The important thing is to make a personal contribution to the world, while we are alive and able to do so.  We can’t all be a Hawking, Einstein or Newton and leave an intellectual legacy. But we can strive to leave our successors with a world as good, or better, than that into which we were born.

I have hopes that we can rise to this.  We have other heroes like Elon Musk with his Space X endeavors that might, one day, help us achieve Hawking’s dream of other planetary outposts.

Let us salute the great people who look upwards and outwards to the future.

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