By 2008, Hawking’s hand was too weak to use the clicker. However, the nerve that allowed him to move his thumbs kept degrading. With this new system, Hawking was able to communicate at a rate of 15 words per minute.

This system was then adapted by David Mason, the engineer husband of one of Hawking’s nurses, to a portable system that could be mounted on one of the arms of a wheelchair. Words Plus CEO Walter Woltosz had created a earlier version of the speech equalizer to her help his mother-in-law who also suffered from ALS.Įqualizer first ran on an Apple II computer linked to a speech synthesizer made by a company called Speech Plus. Martin King, a physicist who had been working with Hawking on a new communication system, contacted a California-based company called Words Plus, whose computer program Equalizer allowed the user to select words and commands on a computer using a hand clicker. From then on, he spoke through a computer synthesiser on the arm of his wheelchair.Ī chance encounter with Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, at a conference in 1997 led to a relationship that would see Intel providing Hawkings with customised PCs and technical support, replacing his computer every 2 years. Although this gave Hawkings the ability to communicate the process was slow. For a while, he used a spelling card to communicate, patiently indicating letters and forming words by raising his eyebrows. In 1986, aged 44, Hawkings lost his voice to save his life after an attack of pneumonia. In his 2013 memoir “My Brief History” he explained how at first he “felt it was very unfair” and often questioned “why should this happen to me.” With time and technology he went from concern that his life was over and his potential never realised to now, 50 years later, feeling quietly satisfied with his life and achievements. Hawking’s incredible mind probed the very limits of human understanding both in the vastness of space and in the sub-molecular world of quantum theory, which he claimed could predict what happens at the beginning and end of time. Hawkings body was ravaged by the wasting motor neurone disease (ALS) he developed age 21 and spent most of his life confined to his wheelchair. Stephen Hawking, who sought to explain the origins of the universe, the mysteries of black holes and the prospect of time travel, died today aged 76.

What happened to stephen hawking