Stephen Hawking

nearest star, other than our sun, is called Proxima Centauri (also known as Alpha Centauri C), which is about four light-years away. That is so far that even with the fastest spaceship on the drawing boards today, a trip to it would take about ten thousand years.

But most people can understand and appreciate the basic ideas if they are presented in a clear way without equations, which I believe is possible and which is something I have enjoyed trying to do throughout my life

I was always very interested in how things operated, and I used to take them apart to see how they worked, but I was not so good at putting them back together again

The prevailing attitude at Oxford at that time was very anti-work. You were supposed to be brilliant without effort, or to accept your limitations and get a fourth-class degree. I took this as an invitation to do very little. I’m not proud of this, I’m just describing my attitude at the time, shared by most of my fellow students. One result of my illness has been to change all that. When you are faced with the possibility of an early death, it makes you realise that there are lots of things you want to do before your life is over

My illness seemed to progress rapidly. Understandably, I became depressed and couldn’t see the point of continuing to research my PhD, because I didn’t know if I would live long enough to finish it. But then the progression slowed down and I had a renewed enthusiasm for my work. After my expectations had been reduced to zero, every new day became a bonus, and I began to appreciate everything I did have. While there’s life, there is hope

As a father, I would try to instill the importance of asking questions, always. My son Tim once told a story in an interview about asking a question which I think at the time he worried was a bit silly. He wanted to know if there were lots of tiny universes dotted around. I told him never to be afraid to come up with an idea or a hypothesis no matter how daft (his words not mine) it might seem