The world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking has always been regarded as a man apart, both for his intelligence and because the effects of disease forced him to communicate with an electronic voice. But for his son Tim, the famous monotone drawl(单调拖腔) of the speech box was not the barrier to a loving bond that many might expect — in fact it proved to be the key.
Indeed, as he admits he spent his earliest years unable to understand his father’s speech. “My dad was able to speak with his own, natural voice for those first years, but it was difficult to understand what he was saying — particularly for me at such a young age,” says Tim. “As a three-year-old, I had no understanding of what he was saying. I didn’t really have any communication with him for the first five years of my life. It was only when he got his voice synthesizer(声音合成器) that I was actually able to start having conversations with him. It was somewhat ironic that Dad losing his voice was actually the start of us being able to form a relationship.”
Father and son shared a passion for motor-racing and would often join Formula 1 champion Frank Williams, who was also in a wheelchair. But it was a piece of advice given to him by his father when he was 12 that Tim has treasured the most. “I remember asking him a question which at the time I thought was a bit silly. I wanted to know if there were lots of other tiny universes dotted around. He gave me the answer and then he told me never to be afraid to come up with an idea or a hypothesis no matter how silly it might seem,” says Tim, who graduated from Exeter University and now works in marketing for the toy firm Lego. “He said that the most important thing was to have the confidence to follow it through, and I think that has been a great lesson for me.”
Hawking, 73, was given just two years to live when he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease(运动神经元病) in 1963. He suffered life-threatening pneumonia(肺炎) in 1985 and was given a treatment which removed what remained of his speech.
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