Stephen Hawking Opens Up About 'My Brief History' in New Memoir
More than two decades after professor Stephen Hawking released his best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time", the 71-year-old is still writing. This time he is publishing a memoir, aptly named "My Brief History."
The 126-page book digs into Hawking's early life and his experiences with marriage, giving his many fans the opportunity to get a glimpse into his journey as a successful scientist and academic despite living with a degenerative nerve disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Hawking has been in a wheelchair for decades since a gradual decline in muscle ability forced him to start using electric wheelchairs and speech machines. Due to his condition, he had to write his memior at a pace of 1-3 words per minute using his cheek muscles.
The LA Times provided an excerpt from the book as he opened up about his nearly three decades of marriage to Jane Wilde:
"She was worried that I was going to die soon and wanted someone who would give her and the children support and marry her when I was gone. She found Jonathan Jones, a musician and organist at the local church, and gave him a room in our apartment. I would have objected, but I too was expecting an early death and felt I needed someone to support the children after I was gone."
"In the end I could stand the situation no longer, and in 1990 I moved out to a flat with one of my nurses, Elaine Mason."
Hawking was married to Wilde from 1965 to 1991 and then ended up marrying Mason in 1995. The couple divorced in 2006.
Hawking is the Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. He is also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.