Helen Keller

Born

Helen Adams Keller

June 27, 1880
Tuscumbia, Alabama, U.S.

Died

June 1, 1968 (aged 87)

Arcan Ridge
Easton, Connecticut, U.S.

Occupati Author, political activist, lecturer

on
Alma ma Harvard University[1]
ter

Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 June 1, 1968) was an

American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the
first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree. The
story of how Keller's teacher, Anne Sullivan, broke through the
isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language,
allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate,
has become widely known through the dramatic depictions of
the play and film The Miracle Worker. Her birthplace in West
Tuscumbia, Alabama, is now a museum [4] and sponsors an
annual "Helen Keller Day". Her birthday on June 27 is
commemorated as Helen Keller Day in the U.S. state
of Pennsylvaniaand was authorized at the federal level by
presidential proclamation by President Jimmy Carter in 1980,
the 100th anniversary of her birth.
A prolific author, Keller was well-traveled and outspoken in her
convictions. A member of the Socialist Party of America and
the Industrial Workers of the World, she campaigned
for women's suffrage, labor rights, socialism,antimilitarism, and
other similar causes. She was inducted into the Alabama

Women's Hall of Fame in 1971 and was one of twelve inaugural

inductees to the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015

Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia,

Alabama. Her family lived on a homestead, Ivy Green, that
Helen's grandfather had built decades earlier. [7] She had two
younger siblings, Mildred Campbell and Phillip Brooks Keller,
and two older half-brothers from her father's prior marriage,
James and William Simpson Keller.
Her father, Arthur H. Keller, spent many years as an editor for
the TuscumbiaNorth Alabamian, and had served as a captain for
the Confederate Army. Her paternal grandmother was the
second cousin of Robert E. Lee. Her mother, Kate Adams, was
the daughter of Charles W. Adams, a Confederate general.
Though originally from Massachusetts, Charles Adams also
fought for the Confederate Army during the American Civil War,
earning the rank of colonel (and acting brigadier-general). Her
paternal lineage was traced to Casper Keller, a native
of Switzerland. One of Helen's Swiss ancestors was the first
teacher for the deaf in Zurich. Keller reflected on this
coincidence in her first autobiography, stating "that there is no
king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no
slave who has not had a king among his." Helen Keller was born
with the ability to see and hear. At 19 months old, she

contracted an illness described by doctors as "an acute

congestion of the stomach and the brain", which might have
been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness left her both deaf
and blind. At that time, she was able to communicate
somewhat with Martha Washington, the six-year-old daughter of
the family cook, who understood her signs; by the age of seven,
Keller had more than 60 home signs to communicate with her
family.
In 1886, Keller's mother, inspired by an account in Charles
Dickens' American Notes of the successful education of another
deaf and blind woman, Laura Bridgman, dispatched young
Helen, accompanied by her father, to seek out physician J.
Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist
in Baltimore, for advice. Chisholm referred the Kellers
toAlexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children
at the time. Bell advised them to contact the Perkins Institute
for the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated,
which was then located in South Boston. Michael Anagnos, the
school's director, asked 20-year-old former student Anne
Sullivan, herself visually impaired, to become Keller's instructor.
It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship during which
Sullivan evolved into Keller's governess and eventually
hercompanion.
Anne Sullivan arrived at Keller's house in March 1887, and
immediately began to teach Helen to communicate by spelling
words into her hand, beginning with "d-o-l-l" for the doll that
she had brought Keller as a present. Keller was frustrated, at
first, because she did not understand that every object had a
word uniquely identifying it. In fact, when Sullivan was trying to
teach Keller the word for "mug", Keller became so frustrated
she broke the mug. Keller's big breakthrough in communication
came the next month, when she realized that the motions her
teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running
cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water";

she then nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all

the other familiar objects in her world.
Formal education
Starting in May 1888, Keller attended the Perkins Institute for
the Blind. In 1894, Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan moved to
New York to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf,
and to learn from Sarah Fuller at the Horace Mann School for
the Deaf. In 1896, they returned to Massachusetts, and Keller
entered The Cambridge School for Young Ladies before gaining
admittance, in 1900, to Radcliffe College, where she lived in
Briggs Hall, South House. Her admirer, Mark Twain, had
introduced her to Standard Oil magnate Henry Huttleston
Rogers, who, with his wife Abbie, paid for her education. In
1904, at the age of 24, Keller graduated from Radcliffe,
becoming the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts
degree. She maintained a correspondence with the Austrian
philosopher and pedagogue Wilhelm Jerusalem, who was one of
the first to discover her literary talent.
Determined to communicate with others as conventionally as
possible, Keller learned to speak, and spent much of her life
giving speeches and lectures. She learned to "hear" people's
speech by reading their lips with her handsher sense of touch
had become extremely subtle. She became proficient at
using braille and reading sign language with her hands as
well. Shortly before World War I, with the assistance of
the Zoellner Quartet she determined that by placing her
fingertips on a resonant tabletop she could experience music
played close by.
Example of her lectures
On January 22, 1916, Helen Keller and her companion, Anne
Sullivan Macy, traveled to the small town of Menomonie in
western Wisconsin to deliver a lecture at the Mabel Tainter

Memorial Building. Details of her talk were provided in the

weekly Dunn County News on January 22, 1916:
A message of optimism, of hope, of good cheer, and of loving
service was brought to Menomonie Saturday a message that
will linger long with those fortunate enough to have received it.
This message came with the visit of Helen Keller and her
teacher, Mrs. John Macy, and both had a hand in imparting it
Saturday evening to a splendid audience that filled The
Memorial. The wonderful girl who has so brilliantly triumphed
over the triple afflictions of blindness, dumbness and deafness,
gave a talk with her own lips on Happiness, and it will be
remembered always as a piece of inspired teaching by those
who heard it.
When part of the account was reprinted in the January 20,
2016, edition of the paper under the heading "From the Files,"
the column compiler added, "According to those who attended,
Helen Keller spoke of the joy that life gave her. She was
thankful for the faculties and abilities that she did possess and
stated that the most productive pleasures she had were
curiosity and imagination. Keller also spoke of the joy of service
and the happiness that came from doing things for others . . .
Keller imparted that 'helping your fellow men were ones only
excuse for being in this world and in the doing of things to help
ones fellows lay the secret of lasting happiness.' She also told
of the joys of loving work and accomplishment and the
happiness of achievement. Although the entire lecture lasted
only a little over an hour, the lecture had a profound impact on
the audience."
Companions
Anne Sullivan stayed as a companion to Helen Keller long after
she taught her. Anne married John Macy in 1905, and her health
started failing around 1914. Polly Thomson was hired to keep
house. She was a young woman from Scotland who had no
experience with deaf or blind people. She progressed to

working as a secretary as well, and eventually became a

constant companion to Keller.
Keller moved to Forest Hills, Queens, together with Anne and
John, and used the house as a base for her efforts on behalf of
the American Foundation for the Blind. "While in her thirties
Helen had a love affair, became secretly engaged, and defied
her teacher and family by attempting an elopement with the
man she loved." He was "Peter Fagan, a young Boston Herald
reporter who was sent to Helen's home to act as her private
secretary when lifelong companion, Anne, fell ill."
Anne Sullivan died in 1936 after a coma, with Keller holding her
hand. Keller and Thomson moved to Connecticut. They traveled
worldwide and raised funds for the blind. Thomson had a stroke
in 1957 from which she never fully recovered, and died in 1960.
Winnie Corbally, a nurse whom they originally hired to care for
Thomson in 1957, stayed on after her death and was Keller's
companion for the rest of her life.
Political activities

Helen Keller portrait, 1904. Due to a protruding left eye, Keller

was usually photographed in profile. Both her eyes were

replaced in adulthood with glass replicas for "medical and

cosmetic reasons
Keller went on to become a world-famous speaker and author.
She is remembered as anadvocate for people with disabilities,
amid numerous other causes. She was a suffragette, a pacifist,
an opponent of Woodrow Wilson, aradical socialist and a birth
control supporter. In 1915 she and George Kessler founded
theHelen
Keller
International (HKI)
organization.
This
organization is devoted to research in vision, health and
nutrition. In 1920, she helped to found the American Civil
Liberties Union(ACLU). Keller traveled to over 40 countries with
Sullivan, making several trips to Japan and becoming a favorite
of the Japanese people. Keller met every U.S. President
from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson and was friends
with many famous figures, includingAlexander Graham
Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain. Keller and Twain were
both considered radicals at the beginning of the 20th century,
and as a consequence, their political views have been forgotten
or glossed-over in the popular mind.
Keller was a member of the Socialist Party and actively
campaigned and wrote in support of the working class from
1909 to 1921. She supported Socialist Party candidate Eugene
V. Debs in each of his campaigns for the presidency. Before
reading Progress and Poverty, Helen Keller was already a
socialist who believed that Georgism was a good step in the
right direction. She later wrote of finding "in Henry Georges
philosophy a rare beauty and power of inspiration, and a
splendid faith in the essential nobility of human nature."
Keller claimed that newspaper columnists who had praised her
courage and intelligence before she expressed her socialist
views now called attention to her disabilities. The editor of
the Brooklyn Eagle wrote that her "mistakes sprung out of the
manifest limitations of her development." Keller responded to
that editor, referring to having met him before he knew of her
political views:

At that time the compliments he paid me were so generous that

I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for
socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and
deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in
intelligence during the years since I met him. ... Oh,
ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! Socially blind and deaf, it defends an
intolerable system, a system that is the cause of much of the
physical blindness and deafness which we are trying to prevent.
Keller joined the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW,
known as the Wobblies) in 1912, saying that parliamentary
socialism was "sinking in the political bog". She wrote for the
IWW between 1916 and 1918. In Why I Became an IWW,
[32]
Keller explained that her motivation for activism came in part
from her concern about blindness and other disabilities:
I was appointed on a commission to investigate the conditions
of the blind. For the first time I, who had thought blindness a
misfortune beyond human control, found that too much of it
was traceable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by
the selfishness and greed of employers. And the social evil
contributed its share. I found that poverty drove women to a
life of shame that ended in blindness.
The last sentence refers to prostitution and syphilis, the former
a frequent cause of the latter, and the latter a leading cause of
blindness. In the same interview, Keller also cited the 1912
strike of textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts for
instigating her support of socialism.
Like
Alexander
Graham
supported eugenics.

Bell

and

others,

Keller

Keller expressed concerns about human overpopulation.

Writings
Keller wrote a total of 12 published books and several articles.

One of her earliest pieces of writing, at age 11, was The Frost
King (1891). There were allegations that this story had
been plagiarized from The Frost Fairies byMargaret Canby. An
investigation into the matter revealed that Keller may have
experienced a case of cryptomnesia, which was that she had
Canby's story read to her but forgot about it, while the memory
remained in her subconscious.
At age 22, Keller published her autobiography, The Story of My
Life (1903), with help from Sullivan and Sullivan's husband,
John Macy. It recounts the story of her life up to age 21 and was
written during her time in college.
Keller wrote The World I Live In in 1908, giving readers an
insight into how she felt about the world. Out of the Dark, a
series of essays on socialism, was published in 1913.
When Keller was young, Anne Sullivan introduced her to Phillips
Brooks, who introduced her to Christianity, Keller famously
saying: "I always knew He was there, but I didn't know His
name!"
Her spiritual autobiography, My Religion, was published in 1927
and then in 1994 extensively revised and re-issued under the
title Light in My Darkness. It advocates the teachings
of Emanuel Swedenborg, the Christian revelator and theologian
who gives a spiritual interpretation of the teachings of the Bible
and who claims that the second coming of Jesus Christ has
already taken place. Adherents use several names to describe
themselves,
including
Second
Advent
Christian, Swedenborgian, and New Church
Later life
Keller suffered a series of strokes in 1961 and spent the last
years of her life at her home.
On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded
her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States'

two highest civilian honors. In 1965 she was elected to

the National Women's Hall of Fame at the New York World's Fair.
Keller devoted much of her later life to raising funds for
the American Foundation for the Blind. She died in her sleep on
June 1, 1968, at her home, Arcan Ridge, located in Easton,
Connecticut, a few weeks short of her eighty-eighth birthday. A
service was held in her honor at the National Cathedral in
Washington, D.C., her body was cremated and her ashes were
placed there next to her constant companions, Anne Sullivan
and Polly Thomson. She was buried at the Washington National
Cathedral

Stephen Hawking

Born

Stephen William Hawking

8 January 1942 (age 74)
Oxford, England

Residence

United Kingdom

Nationality

British

Fields

General relativity

Quantum gravity

Institutions

Caius College, Cambridge

Alma mater

California Institute of Technology

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical
Physics
University
1962)

Properties
Universes (1965)

Doctoral
advisor

Dennis Sciama

Notable
awards

Oxford(BA,

Trinity Hall, Cambridge (PhD, 1965)

Thesis

Known for

College,

of

Expanding

Hawking radiation

PenroseHawking theorems

Adams Prize (1966)

FRS (1974)

Eddington Medal (1975)

Maxwell Medal and Prize(1976)

Heineman Prize (1976)

Hughes Medal (1976)

Albert Einstein Award (1978)

CBE (1982)

RAS Gold Medal (1985)

Dirac Medal (1987)

Wolf Prize (1988)

CH (1989)

Prince of Asturias Award(1989)

Andrew Gemant Award(1998)

Naylor Prize and Lectureship(1999)

Lilienfeld Prize (1999)

(Royal

Society

of

Copley Medal (2006)

Presidential
Freedom (2009)

Medal

Fundamental Physics Prize(2012)

FRSA

Spouse

Albert Medal
Arts) (1999)

BBVA Foundation
Knowledge Award (2015)

Frontiers

of

of

Jane Hawking (m. 1965;div. 1995)

Elaine Mason (m. 1995;div. 2006)

Synopsis
Stephen Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford,
England. At an early age, Hawking showed a passion for
science and the sky. At age 21, while studying cosmology at the

University of Cambridge, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic

lateral sclerosis. Despite his debilitating illness, he has done
groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology, and his several
books have helped to make science accessible to everyone.
Part of his life story was depicted in the 2014 film The Theory
of Everything.
Early Life and Background
The eldest of Frank and Isobel Hawking's four children, Stephen
William Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of the
death of Galileolong a source of pride for the noted physicist
on January 8, 1942. He was born in Oxford, England, into a
family of thinkers. His Scottish mother had earned her way into
Oxford University in the 1930sa time when few women were
able to go to college. His father, another Oxford graduate, was
a respected medical researcher with a specialty in tropical
diseases.
Stephen Hawking's birth came at an inopportune time for his
parents, who didn't have much money. The political climate was
also tense, as England was dealing with World War II and the
onslaught of German bombs. In an effort to seek a safer place,
Isobel returned to Oxford to have the couple's first child. The
Hawkings would go on to have two other children, Mary (1943)
and Philippa (1947). And their second son, Edward, was
adopted in 1956.
The Hawkings, as one close family friend described them, were
an "eccentric" bunch. Dinner was often eaten in silence, each of
the Hawkings intently reading a book. The family car was an old
London taxi, and their home in St. Albans was a three-story
fixer-upper that never quite got fixed. The Hawkings also
housed bees in the basement and produced fireworks in the
greenhouse.
In 1950, Hawking's father took work to manage the Division of
Parasitology at the National Institute of Medical Research, and

spent the winter months in Africa doing research. He wanted

his eldest child to go into medicine, but at an early age,
Hawking showed a passion for science and the sky. That was
evident to his mother, who, along with her children, often
stretched out in the backyard on summer evenings to stare up
at the stars. "Stephen always had a strong sense of wonder,"
she remembered. "And I could see that the stars would draw
him."
Early in his academic life, Hawking, while recognized as bright,
was not an exceptional student. During his first year at St.
Albans School, he was third from the bottom of his class. But
Hawking focused on pursuits outside of school; he loved board
games, and he and a few close friends created new games of
their own. During his teens, Hawking, along with several
friends, constructed a computer out of recycled parts for
solving rudimentary mathematical equations.
Hawking was also frequently on the go. With his sister Mary,
Hawking, who loved to climb, devised different entry routes into
the family home. He remained active even after he entered
University College at Oxford University at the age of 17. He
loved to dance and also took an interest in rowing, becoming a
team coxswain.
Hawking expressed a desire to study mathematics, but since
Oxford didn't offer a degree in that specialty, Hawking
gravitated toward physics and, more specifically, cosmology.
By his own account, Hawking didn't put much time into his
studies. He would later calculate that he averaged about an
hour a day focusing on school. And yet he didn't really have to
do much more than that. In 1962, he graduated with honors in
natural science and went on to attend Trinity Hall at Cambridge
University for a PhD in cosmology.

ALS Diagnosis
While Hawking first began to notice problems with his physical
health while he was at Oxfordon occasion he would trip and
fall, or slur his speechhe didn't look into the problem until
1963, during his first year at Cambridge. For the most part,
Hawking had kept these symptoms to himself. But when his
father took notice of the condition, he took Hawking to see a
doctor. For the next two weeks, the 21-year-old college student
made his home at a medical clinic, where he underwent a
series of tests.
"They took a muscle sample from my arm, stuck electrodes into
me, and injected some radio-opaque fluid into my spine, and
watched it going up and down with X-rays, as they tilted the
bed," he once said. "After all that, they didn't tell me what I
had, except that it was not multiple sclerosis, and that I was an
atypical case."
Eventually, however, doctors did inform the Hawkings about
what was ailing their son: He was in the early stages of
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease). In a
very simple sense, the nerves that controlled his muscles were
shutting down. Doctors gave him two and a half years to live.
It was devastating news for Hawking and his family. A few
events, however, prevented him from becoming completely
despondent. The first of these came while Hawking was still in
the hospital. There, he shared a room with a boy suffering from
leukemia. Relative to what his roommate was going through,
Hawking later reflected, his situation seemed more tolerable.
Not long after he was released from the hospital, Hawking had
a dream that he was going to be executed. He said this dream
made him realize that there were still things to do with his life.
But the most significant change in his life was the fact that he
was in love. At a New Year's party in 1963, shortly before he

had been diagnosed with ALS, Hawking met a young languages

undergraduate named Jane Wilde. They were married in 1965.
In a sense, Hawking's disease helped him become the noted
scientist he is today. Before the diagnosis, Hawking hadn't
always focused on his studies. "Before my condition was
diagnosed, I had been very bored with life," he said. "There had
not seemed to be anything worth doing." With the sudden
realization that he might not even live long enough to earn his
PhD, Hawking poured himself into his work and research.
Research on Black Holes
Groundbreaking findings from another young cosmologist,
Roger Penrose, about the fate of stars and the creation of black
holes tapped into Hawking's own fascination with how the
universe began. This set him on a career course that reshaped
the way the world thinks about black holes and the universe.
While physical control over his body diminished (he'd be forced
to use a wheelchair by 1969), the effects of his disease started
to slow down. In 1968, a year after the birth of his son Robert,
Hawking became a member of the Institute of Astronomy in
Cambridge.
The next few years were a fruitful time for Hawking. A
daughter, Lucy, was born to Stephen and Jane in 1969, while
Hawking continued with his research. (A third child, Timothy,
arrived 10 years later.) He then published his first book, the
highly technical The Large Scale Structure of SpaceTime(1973), with G.F.R. Ellis. He also teamed up with Penrose to
expand upon his friend's earlier work.
In 1974, Hawking's research turned him into a celebrity within
the scientific world when he showed that black holes aren't the
information vacuums that scientists had thought they were. In
simple terms, Hawking demonstrated that matter, in the form

of radiation, can escape the gravitational force of a collapsed

star. Hawking radiation was born.
The announcement sent shock waves of excitement through
the scientific world, and put Hawking on a path that's been
marked by awards, notoriety and distinguished titles. He was
named a fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 32, and later
earned the prestigious Albert Einstein Award, among other
honors.
Teaching stints followed, too. One was at Caltech in Pasadena,
California, where Hawking served as visiting professor, making
subsequent visits over the years. Another was at Gonville and
Caius College in Cambridge. In 1979, Hawking found himself
back at Cambridge University, where he was named to one of
teaching's most renowned posts, dating back to 1663: the
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.
'A Brief History of Time'
Hawking's ever-expanding career was accompanied, however,
by his ever-worsening physical state. By the mid-1970s, the
Hawking family had taken in one of Hawking's graduate
students to help manage his care and work. He could still feed
himself and get out of bed, but virtually everything else
required assistance. In addition, his speech had become
increasingly slurred, so that only those who knew him well
could understand him. In 1985 he lost his voice for good
following a tracheotomy. The resulting situation required 24hour nursing care for the acclaimed physicist.
It also put in peril Hawking's ability to do his work. The
predicament caught the attention of a California computer
programmer, who had developed a speaking program that
could be directed by head or eye movement. The invention
allowed Hawking to select words on a computer screen that
were then passed through a speech synthesizer. At the time of
its introduction, Hawking, who still had use of his fingers,

selected his words with a handheld clicker. Today, with virtually

all control of his body gone, Hawking directs the program
through a cheek muscle attached to a sensor.
Through the program, and the help of assistants, Stephen
Hawking has continued to write at a prolific rate. His work has
included numerous scientific papers, of course, but also
information for the non-scientific community.
In 1988 Hawking, a recipient of the Commander of the Order of
the British Empire, catapulted to international prominence with
the publication of A Brief History of Time. The short, informative
book became an account of cosmology for the masses. The
work was an instant success, spending more than four years
atop the London Sunday Times' best-seller list. Since its
publication, it has sold millions of copies worldwide and been
translated into more than 40 languages. But it also wasn't as
easy to understand as some had hoped. So in 2001, Hawking
followed up his book with The Universe in a Nutshell, which
offered a more illustrated guide to cosmology's big theories.
Four years later, he authored the even more accessible A
Briefer History of Time.
Together the books, along with Hawking's own research and
papers, articulate the physicist's personal search for science's
Holy Grail: a single unifying theory that can combine cosmology
(the study of the big) with quantum mechanics (the study of
the small) to explain how the universe began. It's this kind of
ambitious thinking that has allowed Hawking, who claims he
can think in 11 dimensions, to lay out some big possibilities for
humankind. He's convinced that time travel is possible, and
that humans may indeed colonize other planets in the future.
Space Travel and Further Fame
Hawking's quest for big answers to big questions includes his
own personal desire to travel into space. In 2007, at the age of
65, Hawking made an important step toward space travel.

While visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, he was

given the opportunity to experience an environment without
gravity. Over the course of two hours over the Atlantic,
Hawking, a passenger on a modified Boeing 727, was freed
from his wheelchair to experience bursts of weightlessness.
Pictures of the freely floating physicist splashed across
newspapers around the globe.
"The zero-G part was wonderful, and the high-G part was no
problem. I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come!" he
said.
If there is such a thing as a rock-star scientist, Stephen
Hawking embodies it. His forays into popular culture have
included guest appearances on The Simpsons, Star Trek: The
Next
Generation, a
comedy
spoof
with
comedianJim
Carrey on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and even a recorded
voice-over on the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking." In 1992,
Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris released a documentary
about Hawking's life, aptly titled A Brief History of Time.
Of course, as it is with any celebrity, fame has brought with it
an interest in Hawking's personal life. And there have been
some news-making events. In 1990, Hawking left his wife, Jane,
for one of his nurses, Elaine Mason. The two were married in
1995, and the marriage put a strain on Hawking's relationship
with his own children, who claimed Elaine closed off their father
from them. In 2003, nurses looking after Hawking reported their
suspicions to police that Elaine was physically abusing her
husband. Hawking denied the allegations, and the police
investigation was called off.
In 2006, however, Hawking and Elaine filed for divorce. In the
years since, the physicist has apparently grown closer with his
family. He's reconciled with Jane, who has remarried, and
published a 2007 science book for children,George's Secret Key
to the Universe, with his daughter, Lucy.

Hawking's health, of course, remains a constant concerna

worry that was heightened in 2009 when he failed to appear at
a conference in Arizona because of a chest infection. In April,
Hawking, who had already announced he was retiring after 30
years from the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
Cambridge, was rushed to the hospital for being what
university officials described as "gravely ill." It was later
announced that he was expected to make a full recovery.
Hawking is scheduled to fly to the edge of space as one of
Sir Richard Branson's pioneer space tourists. He said in a 2007
statement, "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being
wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming,
nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers. I
think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I
therefore want to encourage public interest in space."
In September 2010, Hawking spoke against the idea that God
could have created the universe in his book The Grand Design.
Hawking previously argued that belief in a creator could be
compatible with modern scientific theories. His new work,
however, concluded that the Big Bang was the inevitable
consequence of the laws of physics and nothing more.
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and
will create itself from nothing," Hawking said. "Spontaneous
creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing,
why the universe exists, why we exist."
The Grand Design was Hawking's first major publication in
almost a decade. Within his new work, Hawking set out to
challenge Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe had to
have been designed by God, simply because it could not have
been born from chaos. "It is not necessary to invoke God to
light the blue touch paper and set the universe going," Hawking
said.
Hawking made news in 2012 for two very different projects. It
was revealed that he had participated in a 2011 trial of a new

headband-styled device called the iBrain. The device is

designed to "read" the wearer's thoughts by picking up "waves
of electrical brain signals," which are then interpreted by a
special algorithm, according to an article in The New York
Times. This device could be a revolutionary aid to Hawking and
others with ALS.
TV and Film
Also around this time, Hawking showed off his humorous side
on American television. He made a guest appearance on The
Big Bang Theory, a popular comedy about a group of young,
geeky scientists. Playing himself, Hawking brings the
theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) back to Earth
after finding an error in his work. Hawking earned kudos for this
lighthearted effort.
In 2014, Hawking, among other top scientists, spoke out about
the possible dangers of artificial intelligence, or AI, calling for
more research to be done on all of possible ramifications of AI.
Their
comments
were
inspired
by
theJohnny
Depp film Transcendence, which features clash between
humanity and technology. "Success in creating AI would be the
biggest event in human history," the scientists wrote.
"Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to
avoid the risks." The group warned of a time when this
technology would be "outsmarting financial markets, outinventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders,
and developing weapons we cannot even understand."
In November of the same year, a film about the life of Stephen
Hawking and Jane Wilde was released. The Theory of
Everything stars Eddie Redmayneas Hawking and encompasses
his early life and school days, his courtship and marriage to
Wilde, the progression of his crippling disease and his scientific
triumphs.

In May 2016, Hawking hosts and narrates Genius, a six-part

television series which enlists volunteers to tackle scientific
questions that have been asked throughout history. In a
statement regarding his new series, Hawking saidGenius is a
project that furthers my lifelong aim to bring science to the
public. Its a fun show that tries to find out if ordinary people
are smart enough to think like the greatest minds who ever
lived. Being an optimist, I think they will.
Alien Life and New Theories
Hawking was back in the headlines in the summer of 2015. In
July, he held a news conference in London to announce the
launch of a project called Breakthrough Listen. Funded by
Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, Breakthrough Listen was
created to devote more resources to the discovery of
extraterrestrial life.
The following month, Hawking appeared at a conference in
Sweden to discuss new theories about black holes and
the vexing "information paradox." Addressing the issue of what
becomes of an object that enters a black hole, Hawking
proposed that information about the physical state of the object
is stored in 2D form within an outer boundary known as the
"event horizon." Noting that black holes "are not the eternal
prisons they were once thought," he left open the possibility
that the information could be released into another universe.

Nick Vujicic

Date of Birth

4 December 1982, Melbourne, Australia

Birth Name

Nicholas James Vujicic

Nickname

Nick

Height

3' 3" (0.99 m)

Nick Vujicic was born to Dushka and Boris Vujicic in 1982 in

Melbourne, Australia. Although he was an otherwise healthy

baby, Nick was born without arms and legs; he had no legs, but
two small feet, one of which had two toes. Nick has two
siblings, Michelle and Aaron. Initially, a Victoria state law
prevented Nick from attending a mainstream school due to his
physical disability in spite of a lack of mental impairment.
However, Vujicic became one of the first physically disabled
students integrated into a mainstream school once those laws
changed. However, his lack of limbs made him a target for
school bullies, and he fell into a severe depression. At age
eight, he contemplated suicide and even tried to drown himself
in his bathtub at age ten; his love for his parents prevented him
from following through. He also stated in his music video
"Something More" that God had a plan for his life and he could
not bring himself to drown because of this.

Nick prayed very hard that God would give him arms and legs,
and initially told God that, if his prayer remained unanswered,
Nick would not praise him indefinitely. However, a key turning
point in his faith came when his mother showed him a
newspaper article about a man dealing with a severe disability.
Vujicic realized he wasn't unique in his struggles and began to
embrace his lack of limbs. After this, Nick realized his
accomplishments could inspire others and became grateful for
his life.

Nick gradually figured out how to live a full life without limbs,
adapting many of the daily skills limbed people accomplish
without thinking. Nick writes with two toes on his left foot and a
special grip that slid onto his big toe. He knows how to use a
computer and can type up to 45 words per minute using the
"heel and toe" method. He has also learned to throw tennis
balls, play drum pedals, get a glass of water, comb his hair,
brush his teeth, answer the phone and shave, in addition to
participating in golf, swimming, and even sky-diving.

During secondary school, he was elected captain of MacGregor

State in Queensland and worked with the student council on
fundraising events for local charities and disability campaigns.
When he was seventeen, he started to give talks at his prayer
group, and later founded his non-profit organization, Life
Without Limbs.
Early life and family
Vujicic was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in 1982, to
Duanka and Borislav Vujii, devout Serbian Orthodox
emigrants from Yugoslavia. His parents became active in a
Melbourne church. His mother attended nursing school at the
Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne while his father worked
in business management. He was born with phocomelia without
some fully formed limbs. According to his autobiography, his
mother refused to see him or hold him while the nurse held him
in front of her, but she and her husband eventually accepted
their son's condition and understood it as God's plan for their
son.
Vujicic has two small and deformed feet, one of which he calls
his "chicken drumstick" because of its shape. Originally, he was
born with the toes of that foot fused. An operation was
performed to separate the toes so that he could use them as
fingers to grab, turn a page, or perform other functions. He has
been able to use his foot to operate an electric wheelchair, a
computer and a mobile phone. Vujicic notes that he had an
"amazingly normal childhood".
Vujicic thrived in his teenage and young adult years despite
being bullied. After his mother showed him a newspaper article
about a man dealing with a severe disability when he was
seventeen, he started to give talks at his prayer group.
He graduated from Griffith University at the age of 21 with
a Bachelor
of
Commerce degree,
with
a double
major inaccountancy and financial planning.

Career
Vujicic started his speaking engagements at 19 In 2005, he
founded an
international non-profit organisation
and
ministry, Life Without Limbs.
In 2007, Vujicic founded Attitude is Altitude, a secular
motivational speaking company. He starred in the short
film The Butterfly Circus. At the 2010 Method Fest Independent
Film Festival, he was awarded Best Actor in a Short Film for his
starring performance as Will
When Nick, as he is known, turned seventeen, he
started delivering speeches in his church group. He
earned a Bachelor's degree in Commerce, specializing
in financial planning and accountancy, from the 'Griffith
University' in Queensland.
As a speaker, he mainly addresses school children,
young adults, and working professionals. He has also
spoken at various churches, all across the globe,
because he believes that Christ loves him as He loves
all his children.
In his career, Nick has travelled to more than sixty
countries around the world, and has touched the lives of
millions of people. In 2005, he established an NGO
named 'Life Without Limbs', which has its headquarters
in Agoura Hills, California.
In the same year, Vujicic released the DVD of a
documentary movie, titled 'Life's Greater Purpose'. The
film talks about the motivational speaker's childhood,
how he learned to use whatever was there of his limbs,
and his married life.
In March 2008, Nick appeared in the '20/20' television
series aired in the United States, for an interview, taken
by presenter Bob Cummings.
In 2009, Vujicic featured in a short film titled 'The
Butterfly Circus', directed by Joshua Weigel. It also

starred Mexican actor, Eduardo Verstegui, and

American Doug Jones.
The movie won a lot of accolades, including the first
prize awarded by the 'Doorpost Film Project', and the
'Best Short Film' at the 'Method Fest Independent Film
Festival', as well as the 'The Feel Good Film Festival'.
In 2010, Nick wrote a book, 'Life Without Limits:
Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life', under the
banner of publishing company, 'Random House'. He also
released a DVD titled 'Biography of a Determined Man
of Faith'.
Vujicic gave a heart-rending speech in Switzerland, at
the 'World Economic Forum', for their Annual Meeting's
special session, 'Inspired for a Lifetime', in 2011.

Beliefs
On his webpages, in a self-formulated "Statement of Faith",
Vujicic states his adherence to born-again Christianity,[13] to
classically Calvinist notions on sin and redemption and
to Biblical
inerrancy without
specifying
what
particular
understanding of Biblical inerrancy he intends to mean. His
tenets of faith also include the imminent Second Coming of
Christ. He does not publicly identify with or adhere to any
denomination or congregation
Personal life
On 12 February 2012, Vujicic married Kanae Miyahara. The
couple have two sons and live in Southern California
Books and publications
His first book, Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously
Good Life, was published by Random House in 2010 and has
been translated into more than 30 languages. [15] He markets a
motivational DVD, Life's Greater Purpose, a short documentary

filmed in 2005. The second part of the DVD was filmed at his
local church in Brisbane. He markets a DVD for young people
titled No Arms, No Legs, No Worries!.

Life Without Limits: Inspiration of a Ridiculously Good

Life (2010).

Your Life Without Limits (2012).

Limitless: Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life (2013).

Unstoppable:
Action (2013).

The

Incredible

Power

The Power of Unstoppable Faith (2014). I

Stand Strong (2015).

Love Without Limits (2016).

of

Faith

in