Nainital: Stephen Hawking, the celebrated British physicist-cosmologist, who died on 14 March aged 76, visited India twice: for the first time in 1959 and then again in January 2001. During his second visit, a 16-day-long tour which he described as "magnificent",.
Hawking praised Indians for their math and physics skills and also remarked that India changed dramatically since his last visit in 1959. Hawking was awarded the first Sarojini Damodaran Fellowship by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Stephen Hawking traveled around the Mumbai city "in a specially redesigned vehicle from Mahindra & Mahindra" to accommodate his wheelchair.
The British physicist had also celebrated his 59th birthday on 8 January 2001 at the Oberoi Towers Hotel in Mumbai where he stayed in the first leg of his 16-day India tour. He later visited the national capital, Delhi, too. "Impressed as he is by the Indian mathematical genius, the theoretical physicist expressed his wonder at this phenomenon and said it seemed to be a national characteristic'," stated a 2001 report by The Hindu. Here are 11 Hawking quotes, he left behind to inspire and motivate:
1. It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. In the case of information loss and black holes, it was 29 years.
2. Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
3. I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.
4. We are all different, but we share the same human spirit. Perhaps it's human nature that we adapt and survive.
5. So next time someone complains that you have made a mistake, tell him that may be a good thing. Because without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.
6. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious, and however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up.
7.However, difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up.
8. One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose, and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
9. Quiet people have the loudest minds.
10. Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.
11. Some people would claim that things like love, joy and beauty belong to a different category from science and can't be described in scientific terms, but I think they can now be explained by the theory of evolution. The brightest star in the firmament of science, whose insights shaped modern cosmology and inspired global audiences in millions, has begun an infinite journey to the infinite cosmos, he vigorously tried to uncover.