Question: Have you ever met Stephen Hawking?

Joanna Buckley answered on 13 Jun 2010:

Afraid I haven’t… have you? He’s done something pretty awesome – he’s managed to discover something AND get it named after himself. How cool would that be? I remember about a year ago, element 112 was ‘created’ and I had to admit to being a little jealous that someone would forever be immortalised in the periodic table. If you had the chance to get something named after you, I bet you would, wouldn’t you? 08cgrr Road has a certain ring to it.

He studies an area of science which is everywhere in the media at the moment – space and in particular black holes. I find black holes difficult to get your head around. They’re regions in space where if you end up in one, you’ll never get out. Nothing can get out, in fact, including light.
He was the first to say that they can’t split or get smaller and he said that the gravitational pull was so great that nothing could ever escape from them.

He stands apart from other scientists, not only because of his research but because of his muscular dystrophy which means he can’t walk or speak. He speaks by selecting words from a menu which then get sent to a synthesiser and then we can hear what he’s saying. Obviously he still has a brilliant mind, despite his illness and I think he’s an inspiration to everyone. I even read somewhere that he’d turned down a knighthood as he doesn’t like titles. What a guy?!