He was in a wheelchair and could only communicate using a small computer from which he selected words delivered by a speech synthesiser. When he was 21, Hawking had been diagnosed with an early onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease that gradually paralysed him.īy the time he began working with Hertog, he had been appointed Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, one of the world’s most prestigious academic posts (Isaac Newton was a previous holder), and had produced a series of remarkable theories about general relativity, black holes and the origin of the universe as well as his bestseller A Brief History of Time. It was a remarkable collaboration but not an easy one. “Stephen told me he now thought he had been wrong and so he and I worked, shoulder to shoulder, for the next 20 years to develop a new theory of the cosmos, one that could better account for the emergence of life,” Hertog said. Hertog and Hawking were set on hammering out explanations for this state of stellar uncertainty after the latter had decided his previous attempts were inadequate. Without these properties, the universe would probably not have produced life as we know it, it is argued by some cosmologists. In addition, the fact there are only three dimensions of space permits stable solar systems to evolve and provide homes for living creatures. “The problem for Hawking was his struggle to understand how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life,” says Hertog, a cosmologist currently based at KU Leuven University in Belgium.Įxamples of these life-supporting conditions include the delicate balance that exists between particle forces that allow chemistry and complex molecules to exist.

Hertog will outline its origins and themes at a Cambridge festival lecture on 31 March. Next month, five years after Hawking’s death, that book – On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking’s final theory – will be published in the UK. Hawking and Hertog then began working on a new way to encapsulate their latest thinking about the universe. Thus one of the biggest-selling scientific books in publishing history, with worldwide sales credited at more than 10m, was consigned to the waste bin by its own author.

History is all u left me