In March 2018, the world lost a wonderful and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking. He was a scientist par excellence and is known for his theories on the Black Hole and relativity. He was not the conventional, mediocre scientist that the media has generalized scientists as. Stephen had a witty and quirky side to him which he showed often.
Remember when he roasted John Oliver on his show when he asked whether there is a universe where he is smarter than him. Hawking replied, “Yes, and also a universe where you’re funny.“ That was his demeanor, funny, intelligent, and cheeky. However, he once took breaths away from the BBC team when he faked his death.
A BBC Correspondent Shared An Incident Where Stephen Hawking Played Dead
In 2004, Pallab Ghosh, the Science Correspondent happened to interview the physicist at Cambridge. At Cambridge, Stephen was the Lucasian Professor Of Mathematics. Hawking’s smile diffused any nervousness that Pallav felt before the interview.
Before the interview, a technician wanted to make some amends to improve the lighting. Therefore, Ghosh asked one of Stephen’s staff members to pull one of the plugs so that they can fix the problem.
The technician pulled the plug, filling the room with waves of squawk sirens. As the plug was pulled, Stephen reclined forward. The whole team thought that they pulled a wrong plug that might be of significance to his life support.
It turned out that the shrilling noise was due to an overload of power in his computer room. He slouched forward and had a laughing moment which became dreadful, and a moment that characterized who he was, a person with a funny bone and wicked sense of humor.
This was not the only time that he utilized his bag of humor to tickle a funny bone of the internet. In April 2015, he attended a conference via hologram. During the interview, he was asked what was the “cosmological effect” of Zayn Malik leaving One Direction? He replied, “Finally, a question about something important.”
He extended his advice with wise words, “My advice to any heartbroken young girl is to pay close attention to the study of theoretical physics. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies another different universe. And in that universe, Zayn is still in One Direction.”
