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Hawking, a Disabled Man, a Great Scientist

　　Stephen Hawking’s parents lived in London where his father was undertaking(从事)research into medicine．However, London was a dangerous place during World War Ⅱ and Stephen’s mother was sent to the safer town of Oxford where Stephen was born．The family were soon back together living in Highgate, north London, where Stephen began his schooling．

　　Hawking wanted to specialise in mathematics in his last couple of years at school where his mathematics teacher had inspired him to study the subject．

　　In March 1959 Hawking took the scholarship(奖学金)examinations with the aim of studying natural sciences at Oxford．He was awarded a scholarship, despite feeling that he had performed badly, and at University College he specialised in physics in his natural sciences degree．

　　From Oxford, Hawking moved to Cambridge to take up research in general relativity and cosmology(宇宙论), a difficult area for someone with only a little mathematical background．Hawking had noticed that he was becoming rather clumsy(笨拙的)during his last year at Oxford and, when he returned home for Christmas in 1962 at the end of his first term at Cambridge, his mother persuaded him to see a doctor．

　　In early 1963 he spent two weeks having tests in hospital and motor neurone(神经细胞)disease was diagnosed(诊断)．His condition became worse quickly and the doctors predicted that he would not live long enough to complete his doctorate(博士学位)．

　　Although there seemed to be a cloud hanging over his future, he found, to his surprise, that he was enjoying life present more than before．He began to make progress with his research．

　　The reason why his research progressed was that he met a girl he wanted to marry and realised he had to complete his doctorate to get a job．

　　Between 1965 and 1970 Hawking worked on singularities in the theory of general relativity, devising(设计)new mathematical techniques to study this area of cosmology．From 1970 Hawking began to apply his previous ideas to the study of black holes．

　　Another remarkable achievement of Hawking’s using these techniques was his no boundary(边界)proposal made in 1983 with Jim Hartle of Santa Barbara．

　　In 1982 Hawking decided to write a popular book on cosmology．By 1984 he had produced a first draft of A Brief History of Time．However, Hawking was to suffer a further illness－pneumonia(肺炎)．An operation saved his life but took away his voice．

　　Hawking was given a computer system to enable him to have an electronic voice．It was with these difficulties that he revised(修订)the draft of A Brief History of Time which was published in 1988．The book broke sales records in a way that it would have been hard to predict．By May 1995 it had been in The Sunday Times best-sellers list for 237 weeks breaking the previous record of 184 weeks．

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