Stephen Hawking

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking set off chatter in the scientific community in late April when he posited the existence of intelligent aliens on his new TV series, "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking" —adding that it would be best for human beings to avoid contact with them. Hawking speculated that such aliens would likely be nomads, living in ships after sucking their own planet dry of resources, and hopping from one interstellar refueling station to the next. Earth, he said, shouldn't do anything to encourage their visit.

Intel Corp. is trying to help physicist Stephen Hawking keep speaking. Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner told the Associated Press that the tech giant has a research team in Britain that is trying to come up with a new speech system for Hawking, who is severely diasabled by Lou Gehrig's disease. The goal is to keep Hawking's speech from continuing to slow. It's a tedious process for Hawking to speak. A tiny infrared sensor translates movement in his right cheek into words spoken by a voice synthesizer.

Intel Corp. is trying to help physicist Stephen Hawking keep speaking. Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner told the Associated Press that the tech giant has a research team in Britain that is trying to come up with a new speech system for Hawking, who is severely diasabled by Lou Gehrig's disease. The goal is to keep Hawking's speech from continuing to slow. It's a tedious process for Hawking to speak. A tiny infrared sensor translates movement in his right cheek into words spoken by a voice synthesizer.

Stephen Hawking An Unfettered Mind Kitty Ferguson Palgrave Macmillan: 320 pp., $27 Today is Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday. It's an event worth marking, not least for its profound unlikelihood. As many even outside the physics community know, he learned about 50 years ago that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's disease). He was given two years to live. However, at the time he was just coming into his own as a theoretical physicist, and he couldn't be bothered to die. Kitty Ferguson, a graduate of Juilliard and author of this intelligent and readable biography, "Stephen Hawking: An Unfettered Mind," is astonishing in her own right.

Stephen Hawking An Unfettered Mind Kitty Ferguson Palgrave Macmillan: 320 pp., $27 Today is Stephen Hawking's 70th birthday. It's an event worth marking, not least for its profound unlikelihood. As many even outside the physics community know, he learned about 50 years ago that he had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's disease). He was given two years to live. However, at the time he was just coming into his own as a theoretical physicist, and he couldn't be bothered to die. Kitty Ferguson, a graduate of Juilliard and author of this intelligent and readable biography, "Stephen Hawking: An Unfettered Mind," is astonishing in her own right.

If some L.A.-area teachers wondered where their students were Tuesday, maybe they can blame Stephen Hawking. With his computerized voice, motorized wheelchair and an intellect that seems to leave mortal men far behind, Hawking is one of the best-known physicists ever. Die-hard fans, many of them youthful, started lining up early in the morning to get coveted free tickets to hear him speak at Caltech Tuesday night, school be damned. FOR THE RECORD: Stephen Hawking: A Jan. 19 article in LATExtra on a talk at Caltech given by physicist Stephen Hawking said he has a form of muscular dystrophy that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

"Stephen's appeal has to do with the fact that he's otherworldly, but at the same time He's an everyman," says director Errol Morris of Stephen Hawking, the severely disabled theoretical physicist who is the subject of Morris' documentary film "A Brief History of Time," which opens Friday. "When you look at things with the scale of the cosmos in mind, his situation isn't much different from everyone else's.

For two decades, Stanford University physicist Leonard Susskind battled cosmologist Stephen Hawking over the behavior of black holes. Hawking said that when black holes eat their fill, they disappear, taking with them everything they consumed over their billions of years of existence. Susskind found this idea so disturbing that he publicly declared war -- a conflict he describes in his new book, "The Black Hole War."

The wheelchair whirred through the restaurant's double doors, tempting one diner to stare hard at its gnomish occupant. Unable to contain his curiosity, the young man stepped forward. "Dr. Stephen Hawking?" he asked, his voice charged with something like awe. Hesitantly he reached out to shake a hand unable to accommodate such formalities. "I want you to know, you have a fan club in this restaurant." Hawking's immobile right hand squeezed a gadget attached to a computerized voice synthesizer.

Two years ago a book called "A Brief History of Time" hit the top of the best-seller lists, and an unlikely new star in a wheelchair found himself rocketing past astronomer Carl Sagan to become king of the pop science cosmos. Since then, virtually every publication on the planet, from People to Playboy, has profiled theoretical physicist Stephen W. Hawking.

'Anti-immigrant' is the wrong term Re "Putting a human face on the immigrant," Opinion, Jan. 19 Most fair-minded individuals are open to developing a reasonable work permit process for hardworking, legal immigrants, and a path to citizenship. However, the continued use of the term "immigrant" provides a disingenuous way for the left to claim that anyone who wants strict border enforcement and respect for our laws is "anti-immigrant. " The fact is that many who are here illegally are drug cartel killers and others who are most definitely not "immigrants.

If some L.A.-area teachers wondered where their students were Tuesday, maybe they can blame Stephen Hawking. With his computerized voice, motorized wheelchair and an intellect that seems to leave mortal men far behind, Hawking is one of the best-known physicists ever. Die-hard fans, many of them youthful, started lining up early in the morning to get coveted free tickets to hear him speak at Caltech Tuesday night, school be damned. FOR THE RECORD: Stephen Hawking: A Jan. 19 article in LATExtra on a talk at Caltech given by physicist Stephen Hawking said he has a form of muscular dystrophy that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The Grand Design Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow Bantam: 200 pp., $28 Robert Oppenheimer was fond of proposing that physics and poetry were becoming indistinguishable. In "The Grand Design," Cambridge theorist Stephen Hawking and Caltech physicist Leonard Mlodinow seem to suggest that physics and metaphysics are also growing closer. They point out that the unified field theory that physicists, including Einstein, spent the better part of the 20th century trying to construct, probably can't exist.

Woofing about Riordan Re "Unleashed," Opinion, May 8 Where was Hizzoner in taking on the unions when he was in a position to actually do something? If former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan had fought to reduce the pension promises to all new hires who started with the city during his eight years, we would not now be looking at the ballooning pension costs that may cripple the city's fiscal future. If Riordan, with tons of his own money to finance his political career, and ostensibly no further political ambitions, couldn't face down the powerful public unions, who can?

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking set off chatter in the scientific community in late April when he posited the existence of intelligent aliens on his new TV series, "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking" —adding that it would be best for human beings to avoid contact with them. Hawking speculated that such aliens would likely be nomads, living in ships after sucking their own planet dry of resources, and hopping from one interstellar refueling station to the next. Earth, he said, shouldn't do anything to encourage their visit.

Who would have thought that one of the world's most famous scientists finds time to take in a little television? Whether it's crime dramas or "The Simpsons," Stephen Hawking tunes in. He'd even like to participate in a certain popular dance reality competition. "I'm still waiting for my invitation to 'Dancing With the Stars,' " Hawking joked via a taped message at the Television Critics' Assn. press tour in Pasadena. Until then, he's part of the upcoming Discovery Channel special "Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking."

One of the world's foremost scientists slipped the bonds of his wheelchair Thursday to float in zero gravity in the skies above the Atlantic Ocean. Stephen Hawking, a renowned British physicist who has Lou Gehrig's disease, experienced about four minutes of simulated weightlessness aboard a modified Boeing 727 jet operated by the Zero Gravity Corp.

Software creator Walter Woltosz got a mysterious phone call from Cambridge University in 1985, shortly after he started selling a computer system he had designed to allow severely disabled people to write and even "speak" by manipulating a single button. News of the system had reached the caller, who wondered if it might be right for "a very bright fellow" at the English university who had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking will retire from his prestigious post at Cambridge University in Britain next year but intends to continue his exploration of time and space. Hawking, 66, is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a title once held by 17th and 18th century physicist Isaac Newton. The university said Friday that Hawking would step down in September but would continue as Emeritus Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.

For two decades, Stanford University physicist Leonard Susskind battled cosmologist Stephen Hawking over the behavior of black holes. Hawking said that when black holes eat their fill, they disappear, taking with them everything they consumed over their billions of years of existence. Susskind found this idea so disturbing that he publicly declared war -- a conflict he describes in his new book, "The Black Hole War."