Eulogy for My Father
A remembrance of Stephen Hawking, by his eldest son
Given at the funeral of Stephen Hawking, 31 March 2018, University Church of St Mary the Great, Cambridge, England
Quantum mechanics tells us that particles behave like waves. The mathematics of quantum mechanics has the concept of a wave function to describe them. Wave functions can be very complex and how we observe makes a difference to what we see. My father, Stephen Hawking, in 1983 published a paper, with Jim Hartle, called the “Wave Function of the Universe”. It proposed the idea that the wave function of the entire universe could have no boundaries, if you used imaginary time. One of the many things his book “A Brief History of Time” tried to explain, was this idea.
Today we celebrate the wave function of Stephen Hawking. It is a brilliant multi-dimensional thing. As with the universe, my father did not believe in boundary conditions for himself. We are here, however, to mark one of its boundaries. In our real time he died on 14th March; that is his body, the classical biological manifestation of the wave function, ceased functioning. I like to think the energy of the wave function has not gone to zero however, and that it still has impact here.
Observations from his life can help us here and in the future. We will start with my father as a public figure.
He was a bright mind interacting with hard problems in theoretical physics, bringing a unique perspective.
He was a hero to many, including to me, for his persistence in face of Motor Neurone Disease. He was an example of how people with challenging situations could still give back to humanity.
He brought science to the people. Through talks, books, television and film he sought to explain science and inspire. Along the way he became part of popular culture, a role he enjoyed. It also gave an outlet to his impish sense of humour.
At this point, I want to acknowledge that his success was made possible by support from many institutions and individuals. I also want to acknowledge that that there were times, for individuals supporting him, that were challenging and hard — I know from personal experience.
Being around him also could bring up the absurd. My father sometimes liked to go out dancing. A couple of times I was one of a group, who after my father had had a day of public engagements, and most of us thought it was time to go to bed, went out Salsa dancing at his insistence. A few years ago, my brother was at a work Christmas party, when he was surprised to find his dad on the edge of the dance floor. He did a double take, eventually remembering he was at the waxworks museum.
My father was not just a public figure, though. He was a man, a human being with tastes, feelings, passions and flaws. For you here, he was a man that you interacted with as a family member, friend or colleague. I am going to concentrate now on the most important way I interacted with him, Stephen Hawking, the man, as a father.
I have fond memories of playing chase in our back garden with my siblings and him, when I was little. The other day my brother and I were reminiscing about short trips he took us on when my brother was in his teens: to a water slide park, and to Aviemore so that two of us could ski while he sat at the bottom. In our formative years, our father tried to do things to support us according to our individual needs. My brother was into motor racing, and my father took him around to many races. My father tried to make it to all my sister’s school plays — though, he was not great at turning up on time, and my father was never able to enter a room in a quiet unobtrusive way. I got a very young interest in computers and he greatly supported me in that. On my bookcase, in my office at home, I have a computer book that I think he got from his university department library for me: “Fortran techniques with special reference to non-numerical applications”
With the next generation, my father found the joys of grandparenthood. He loved taking his grandchildren to the pantomime. On one occasion he checked himself out of Papworth hospital for the evening, so that he could make to a panto at the Arts, just around the corner from here. Eighteen months ago, he needed to get a birthday present for his granddaughter. So, we all went in to the Grand Arcade to get one. As this was the height of summer in Cambridge, a very confused mass of shoppers and tourists ended up causing considerable congestion.
As we got older and our lives got more complicated my relationship with my father evolved too. When I was a teenager, he still used his own voice, which was very hard for most people to understand. I strongly valued that I could understand him very well. After his tracheotomy, he acquired his iconic word picking system and computer voice. It opened up for the rest of the world to hear him better, but I felt a sense of loss from the slower communication. My father started asking me: “What are your plans?”. I was left struggling whether to answer about what I was doing that evening, what I was going to do for the following week or what I was intending to do with my life. As I grew older I often valued other quiet or non-verbal means of communication. One of those was listening to opera or the King’s Christmas Eve service together. A less quiet form of his non-verbal expression was when my father arranged to have firework displays when his grandchildren visited.
My father told us many times how proud he was of his children. At first, I was uncertain how to respond, not having had something like ‘Hawking Radiation’ named after me. After a while, I came to realise (and becoming a father myself helped here) that it was the inherent pride of a father in children he loved and who loved him. So, Dad, I am proud of you: the father.
In conclusion, when thinking of the future of the wave function, I want to encourage you to remember Stephen Hawking, the human being, along with the public figure. For me, I choose to remember him principally as a father and grandfather. I love you Dad.
Pictures by Katrina Hawking
