Fly Free, Prof. Stephen Hawking

The world will miss the tenacity and brilliant intellect of Dr. Stephen Hawking, who died at the age of 76 today. We need more thinkers like him—men and women who can explore the universe with their minds and communicate what they know to the rest of us. He never pretended to have all the answers, but he was relentless in pursuit of knowledge.

My husband and I met Stephen Hawking at an event in Utah some years ago. It was very memorable, particularly the part where he got to fly a flight simulator at Evans & Sutherland. He was grinning like a kid with a huge bag of candy when he came out of the sim. It remains my favorite memory of that weekend.

The day before he flew in the sim, he gave a talk at an arena in SLC. To herald his arrival on stage, they played the segment from Star Trek: The Next Generation when Stephen was playing poker with Data and other famous scientists in the Holodeck. At the end of the video segment, the lights started flashing on stage and Stephen wheeled himself up a ramp to center stage. An incredible roar of approval came from the crowd of 17,000 people. It was one of the most amazing performances and he hadn’t even started giving his presentation.

Stephen Hawking lived his life as fully as he could despite his illness. He shared his knowledge with the world and made more of a positive impression than any public figure in recent history. Social media is filled with comments today by people he inspired. They, too, wanted to know more about the universe and he shared what he knew. I hope that his explorations now take him to new realms of the cosmos.