A Brief History of Time Page #3

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and he couldn't get up.

So I took him to a caf

to warm up...

and he told me then

all about it.

And it was diagnosed.

I insisted on going

to see his doctor...

because it seemed to me

however long you're going to live...

there's probably something

someone can do about it...

at least anyhow to make

things easier for people.

I won't mention

the doctor's name...

but I got to see him

at the London Clinic.

He was rather surprised that I should

bother to come 'round to see him.

After all, I was only

Stephen's mother.

He was quite nice. He agreed

to see me in a rather grand way.

And he said,

"Yes, it's all very sad.

Brilliant young man cut off

in the prime of his youth."

But of course I said,

"What can we do?"

What can we do to sort of...

Can we get physiotherapy?

"Can we get anything like that

that will help in any way?"

He said, "Well, actually, no."

There's nothing I can do, really.

More or less, that's it."

Shortly after my 21st birthday...

I went into hospital for tests.

They took a muscle sample

from my arm...

stuck electrodes into me...

and injected some radiopaque

fluid into my spine...

and watched it going

up and down with X-rays...

as they tilted the bed.

I was diagnosed as having ALS...

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis...

or motor neuron disease,

as it is also known.

The doctors

could offer no cure...

and gave me 21/2 years to live.

I went into the graduates'

common room...

looking, really, for someone

to have lunch with.

There was nobody around that

I particularly wished to have lunch with...

and then Stephen walked

through the door.

I don't know what he was doing at Oxford.

I've certainly forgotten now.

And so Stephen

generously went off...

to buy the drinks...

and brought them

and put them on the table.

And as he put his pint

of beer down...

he spilled it.

I sort of said genially...

"Oh, heavens.

Drinking at this time of day!"

He then told me he'd been

in Addenbrooke's for three weeks...

and they'd done

a whole series of tests...

and they'd decided...

what was wrong with him.

And he told me

very straight and flat...

that he was gradually

going to lose...

the use of his body...

that eventually...

only his heart and his lungs...

would still be operating,

and his brain...

and that they'd told him that...

eventually he would essentially

have the body of a cabbage...

but his mind would still be

in perfect working order...

and he would be unable to communicate

with the rest of the world.

My dreams at that time

were rather disturbed.

Before my condition

had been diagnosed...

I had been very bored with life.

There had not seemed to be

anything worth doing.

But shortly after

I came out of hospital...

I dreamt that I was

going to be executed.

I suddenly realized there were

a lot of worthwhile things...

I could do if I were reprieved.

I knew perfectly well

that he had no faith...

and...

to me, that made it

the more difficult...

because you must ask yourself,

"Why me?

Why this? Why now?"

But he just totally,

flatly accepted...

that this was what was going

to happen to him.

As far as I can gather, at that point

he started to do some work.

At first, there did not

seem much point...

in working at my research...

because I didn't expect

to live long enough...

to finish my PhD.

However, as time went by...

the disease seemed to slow down.

I began to understand

general relativity...

and made progress with my work.

But what really made

a difference was...

I had got engaged

to a girl called Jane Wilde.

This gave me

something to live for...

but it also meant

I had to get a job...

if we were to get married.

Stephen was already ill.

Jane knew it.

And it was another instance

of Stephen's luck, you know...

meeting the right person

at the right time...

because Stephen was

very, very badly depressed...

and he wasn't very much inclined

to go on with his work.

He'd been told

he's only got 21/2 years.

What can you do in that time?

But meeting Jane really

put him on his mettle...

and he started to work.

I wanted to understand...

how the universe began.

Einstein's theory

of general relativity...

showed that the universe

was expanding.

But there was no answer

to the crucial question...

"Must there have been

a Big Bang...

a beginning to time?"

Then, in my third year

at Cambridge...

Roger Penrose made

his discovery...

about the death of stars.

I remember talking to this friend,

Ivor Robinson...

and we were having

this animated conversation...

and then we had

to cross a road...

and as we crossed the road,

of course, the conversation stopped...

and then we got

to the other side.

Evidently, I had some idea

crossing the road...

but then the conversation started up, and

it got completely blotted out of my mind.

It was only later,

after my friend had gone home...

and I began to have

this strange feeling of elation...

feeling wonderful.

I couldn't figure out why I should feel

like that, so I went back over the day...

thinking all possible things which might

have contributed to such a feeling...

and then gradually

I unearthed this thought...

which I'd had

while crossing the street.

Penrose announced this result...

that when stars

collapse indefinitely...

they will become singular...

as long as some

very broad conditions are satisfied...

that everybody would have

regarded as reasonable.

And I remember Stephen Hawking,

who was then approaching...

his third year

as a research student, saying...

"What very interesting results."

I wonder whether

they could be adapted...

"to understanding

the origin of the universe."

And what he had in mind, you see,

was that if, just mentally...

you reverse the sense of time...

you can think of the expanding

universe as a collapsing system.

It's a bit like

a very giant star collapsing.

Roger Penrose proved...

that a dying star,

collapsing under its own gravity...

eventually shrinks

to a singularity...

a point of infinite density

and zero size.

I realized that if I reversed

the direction of time...

so that the collapse

became an expansion...

I could prove that...

the universe had a beginning.

But my proof...

based on Einstein's theory

of general relativity...

also showed that

we cannot understand...

how the universe began...

because it showed

that all scientific theories...

including

general relativity itself...

break down

at the beginning of the universe.

We had this meeting...

at the Institute of Space Physics

in New York.

I said, "Before we reach

a final conclusion..."

we ought

to throw into the pot...

still another object...

a gravitationally

completely collapsed object.

Well, after you've used

the phrase...

"a gravitationally completely

collapsed object" ten times...

you conclude you've got

to get a better name.

So that's when I switched...

to the word "black hole".

The word "black hole," which John

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