stephen hakings

 











Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 to Frank and Isobel Hawking.^[1][2] Despite family financial constraints, both parents had attended Oxford University, where Frank had studied medicine and Isobel Philosophy, Politics and Economics.^[2] The two met shortly after the beginning of the Second World War at a medical research institute where Isobel was working as a secretary and Frank as a medical researcher.^[2][3] Hawking's parents lived in Highgate but as London was under attack during the Second World War, his mother went to Oxford to give birth in greater safety.^[4] He has two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward.^[5] Hawking began his schooling at the Byron House School; he later blamed its "progressive methods" for his failure to learn to read while at the school.^[6]
In 1950, when his father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research, Hawking and his family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire.^[6][7] The eight-year-old Hawking attended St Albans High School for Girls for a few months; at that time, younger boys could attend one of the houses.^[8][9] In St Albans, the family were considered highly intelligent and eccentric.^[6][10] They lived a frugal existence in a large, cluttered, and poorly maintained house, and travelled in a converted London taxicab.^[11][12] The family placed a high value on education, with regular trips to museums, and meals spent with everyone reading in silence.^[6] During one of Hawking's father's frequent absences working in Africa,^[13] the rest of the family spent four months in Majorca visiting his mother's friend Beryl and her husband, the poet Robert Graves.^[8] On their return to England, Hawking attended Radlett School for a year^[9] and from September 1952, St Albans School.^[14] Hawking's father wanted his son to attend the well-regarded Westminster School, but 13-year-old Hawking was ill on the day of the scholarship examination. His family could not afford the school fees without the financial aid of a scholarship, so Hawking remained at St Albans.^[15][16] As a positive consequence, Hawking remained with the close group of friends with whom he enjoyed board games, the manufacture of fireworks, model aeroplanes and boats,^[17] and long discussions about Christianity and extrasensory perception.^[18] From 1958, and with the help of the mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta, they built a computer from clock parts, an old telephone switchboard and other recycled components.^[19][20]