Summary and Key Points: Dr. Stephen Hawking’s life was a profound defiance of a terminal diagnosis.
-Given only two years to live after being diagnosed with ALS at age 21, Hawking spent the next five decades revolutionizing our understanding of the universe. Supported by his first wife, Jane Wilde, he completed his PhD at Cambridge and published the paradigm-shifting theory of Hawking Radiation in 1974.
-His 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, transformed him into a pop-culture icon, a legacy later immortalized in the Oscar-winning film The Theory of Everything.
-Hawking proved that intellectual triumph is limitless, even when the body is confined.
Quote of the Day by Stephen Hawking: You Can Achieve Great Things In Life Despite the Odds
“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”—That quote belongs to the late Dr. Stephen Hawking, a man who was well-qualified to make such a statement.
Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Winston Churchill are all famous historical figures who overcame adversity to become extraordinarily successful (Lincoln and Grant as Presidents of the United States, Grant also as commanding general of the Union Army during the American Civil War, and Churchill as Prime Minister of Great Britain during World War II).
General Ulysses S. Grant at Cold Harbor. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
However, their adversities were bureaucratic and political in nature. By contrast, Dr. Hawking overcame an excruciatingly debilitating physical affliction to become one of the greatest cosmologists of all time, arguably tied with Albert Einstein as the most recognizable scientist of the modern era.
Abraham Lincoln 19FortyFive Image. Taken at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC by Dr. Brent M. Eastwood on 1/23/2026.
Doctoral Studies Part I: First Encounter with Physical Adversity for Stephen Hawking
Young Stephen’s undergraduate years at Oxford University were (in light of his later renown) remarkably unremarkable; the most memorable aspect of his life at Oxford was his status as a member of the school’s boat club.
Instead, it was his doctoral studies at Cambridge University (Oxford’s chief rival) that proved most profoundly impactful on his personal life, both positively and negatively. He began those studies in October 1962, at the age of 20.
As noted by his Ducksters mini-bio, this was when Hawking “began to have health issues. His speech became slurred, and he became very clumsy, often dropping items or falling for no reason.” The following year, he received the diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease (named for the famous New York Yankees’ baseball player who was diagnosed with it). As described by the Mayo Clinic, “ALS, is a nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. ALS causes loss of muscle control. The disease gets worse over time…The exact cause of the disease is still not known.” Hawking’s physicians told him that he probably wouldn’t live past age 25.
Doctoral Studies Part Deux: First Encounter with True Love
As Charles Dickens famously said in “A Tale of Two Cities,” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” As godawful as Stephen’s ALS diagnosis was, it was during these early years of this medical ordeal at Cambridge that he also found his most significant reason to go on living (besides the motivation to finish his PhD program, that is): meeting and falling in love with a co-ed named Jane Wilde (most definitely NOT to be confused with the pornographic actress of the same name).
The two lovebirds met at a New Year’s party before his diagnosis. Jane was an undergraduate in Cambridge’s modern languages program, and like Stephen, she had grown up in St. Albans.
As noted by Dr. Hawking’s BBC bio, “The couple decided to marry quickly, because they did not know how long Stephen had to live. As Stephen’s health deteriorated, he took to walking with a stick. Jane, who was two years younger than her fiancé, had to seek a special exemption from her college as students were not normally allowed to wed.” The marriage took place in 1965, and in March of the following year, the couple’s determination paid off, as Dr. Hawking obtained his PhD in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specializing in general relativity and cosmology.
Onward and Upward
Dr. Hawking was soon confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak for the rest of his adult life; he was able to communicate using a touchpad computer and a voice synthesizer.
Jane bore him three children (Robert, Lucy, and Jane) and eventually earned a Ph.D of her own in medieval Spanish poetry.
However, in her own words, “The truth was, there were four partners in our marriage. Stephen and I, motor neuron disease, and physics.” Accordingly, in 1995 (after 30 years of marriage), Stephen and Jane divorced, and each married a new spouse within two years. However, the two did manage to quietly reconcile in a platonic friendship after he divorced his second wife (his former nurse, Elaine Mason) in 2006.
That said, Jane Hawking was with her first husband for the two crowning achievements of his life:
-His most famous theory, Hawking Radiation, was first published in 1974 and demonstrated that black holes emit some radiation, thus challenging the longstanding paradigm that black holes could not get smaller because nothing could escape their enormous gravity.
NASA Space Shuttle Discovery. Image Credit: 19FortyFive.com taken on October 1, 2022.
-In 1988, he published the book “A Brief History of Time,” which spent four years on the London Sunday Times bestseller list and was adapted into a 1991 documentary film directed by Errol Miller.
Immortalized in Pop Culture
Both Hawking’s initial battles with Lou Gehrig’s disease and his love story with Jane were dramatized for mainstream movie audiences (including non-scientifically inclined viewers who might not be interested in documentaries such as the aforementioned 1991 film) in the 2014 biographical drama “The Theory of Everything.” This film starred Eddie Redmayne as Hawking and Felicity Jones as Jane; Redmayne won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, whilst Felicity Jones was nominated for Best Actress.
In addition, “The Theory of Everything” garnered Oscar nominations for Best Picture (it was directed by James Marsh and produced by Working Title Films), Best Adapted Screenplay [written by Anthony McCarten based upon Jane Hawking’s 2007 memoir “Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen“), and Best Original Score (composed by Jóhann Jóhannsson). This film was also a box office success, grossing $123.7 million worldwide.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He is also the author of the newly published book “Five Decades of a Fabulous Firearm: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beretta 92 Pistol Series.”
