While Stephen was studying for his A levels exams that British students take at 18 in math physics and chemistry he built two computers from scratch with his friends using clock parts and parts from a telephone switchboard They called it the Logical Uniselector Computing Engine LUCE It solved logical problems if this condition is true then another thing will happen Years later the school’s computing teacher found a box of junk and threw it away He had no idea it held Hawking’s computer This is an early computer the operating console is in the middle and the tubes containing the memory are right behind it
Science student When he was 17 Stephen took some tough exams and was accepted at Oxford University to study science focusing on physics At the time he found physics boring because it was so simple for him but he felt that physics and astronomy offered the hope of understanding where we came from and why we are here COMPUTERS In the 1950s just a few computers existed in universities for scientific research They were huge sometimes taking up an entire room A small group of trained experts used them for complicated math problems No ordinary person could operate a computer you needed to be able to write computer programs Off to college In 1959 Stephen began his studies at Oxford University He found the classes easy so he was rather lazy He later figured out that he had spent an average of one hour a day studying during his three-year program He made the most of Oxford's social life though acting as the coxswain the person who steers the boat for a rowing team The boat club enjoyed lively parties too
Stephen Hawking was coxswain for the Cambridge rowing team seen here in 1961
Who’s who Albert Einstein 1879 1955 Stephen Hawking based his work on Albert Einstein’s theories Before Einstein people thought that measurements of time and space the distance between objects together known as space-time were the same all over the universe Einstein realized that they are different if the people measuring are moving at different speeds He figured out that the gravity pull of the Sun bends light so space-time is curved similar to the way a blanket dips if you hold the corners and throw a ball into the middle
