Eddie with his wife arriving
Amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease
and Charcot disease, is a specific disorder that involves the death of
neurons. The
man spoken about suffers from a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of ALS that has gradually paralysed him over the
decades. He had experienced increasing
clumsiness during his final year at Oxford, including a fall on some stairs and
difficulties when rowing. The problems
worsened, and his speech became slightly slurred; the diagnosis of motor neurone disease came
when Hawking was 21, in 1963; at that time, doctors gave him a life expectancy of
two years. In the late 1960s, his physical abilities declined: he began to use
crutches and ceased lecturing regularly. As he slowly lost the ability to write, he
developed compensatory visual methods, including seeing equations in terms of
geometry. He preferred to be regarded as
"a scientist first, popular science writer second, and, in all the ways
that matter, a normal human being with the same desires, drives, dreams, and
ambitions as the next person." His
speech too deteriorated and became
unintelligible.
During a visit to
the European Organisation for Nuclear Research on the border of France and
Switzerland in mid-1985, he contracted pneumonia which in his condition was
life-threatening; he was so ill that his wife was asked if life support should
be terminated. She refused but the consequence was a tracheotomy, which would
require round-the-clock nursing care, and remove what remained of his speech. Years later, he received a computer program called the "Equalizer" from
Walt Woltosz. In a method he uses to this day, using a switch he selects
phrases, words or letters from a bank of about 2500–3000 that are scanned; and
much later he activated a switch using
his hand and could produce up to 15 words a minute. Lectures were prepared in advance and were
sent to the speech synthesiser in short sections to be delivered. Even that
could not last, as in 2005 he lost the use of his hand and began to control his
communication device with movements of his cheek muscles, with a rate of about one word per minute. One
cannot read any further of the sufferings.
The
Theory of Everything is a 2014 British biographical
romantic drama film directed by James Marsh and adapted by Anthony McCarten
from the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life
with Stephen by Jane Wilde Hawking, which deals with her relationship
with her ex-husband, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, his diagnosis of
motor neuron disease, and his success in physics. The film stars Eddie Redmayne and Felicity
Jones and had its world premiere at the 2014 Toronto
International Film Festival in Sept. 2014.
The film received
four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning the Golden Globe Award for Best
Actor – Motion Picture Drama for Redmayne and Best Original Score. Now, Eddie Redmayne has received the Academy Award for Best Actor. In the movie, Redmayne brilliantly captures
Hawking's transition from a vivacious young man racing around on bikes to
needing a cane, then two canes, and eventually being confined to a wheelchair.
The actor told Live Science previously that he worked with dance choreographers
and patients at an ALS clinic to get the physical poses just right. He also
worked with a speech therapist to recreate Hawking's progressively garbled
speech. The British actor came to the
Oscars the favorite after claiming the Screen Actors’ Guild’s best actor award
last month. The winner of that award has gone on to pick up the best actor
Oscar every year since 2003.
as portrayed on screen !
Jane
Hawking, Stephen Hawking's former wife, on whose memoir the film The Theory of
Everything is based, says that she was "astounded" at how realistic
Felicity Jones' performance was. Ms Jones played Jane Hawking in the film. "I
thought how can I be on the screen and in a cinema seat at the same time,"
Ms Hawking said. Although Eddie Redmayne won the Best Actor award in the 2015
Oscars on Sunday for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking, Felicity Jones
missed out on the Best Actress award.
Stephen
William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA (1942) is an English theoretical physicist,
cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical
Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. His scientific works include a
collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the
framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black
holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking is an Honorary Fellow
of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest
civilian award in the United States. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
24th Feb 2015.
