Trivia

He appeared as guest star on a Star Trek episode, and asked the crew to make a tour of the U.S.S. Enterprise. When he saw the warp drive, he said "I'm working on that...".

He occupied the same post, as Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, as was earlier occupied by Sir Isaac Newton.

Hawking was a huge fan of the immortal Marilyn Monroe. His 60th birthday celebration included an appearance by a Marilyn Monroe impersonator.

He was a huge fan of Star Trek (1966) and the only person ever to play himself in any Star Trek film or series. He was also a huge fan of Docteur Who (1963) and Red Dwarf (1988).

On account of the American accent on his voice synthesizer, many people have no idea that he was really English. He had said he would like to replace it with a synthesizer with an English accent, but he had become so synonymous with his that he knew he couldn't.

Despite his extraordinary intellect, he was unaware of his IQ score and had no interest in finding out, expressing a dim view of people who boast about theirs.

He was born exactly 300 years after the death of Galileo, and then passed away on the anniversary of Albert Einstein's birth.

Claimed to have disproved Time Travel by throwing a Party for Time Travelers, and then advertising it the day after. No-one attended.

He has admitted to having been quite lazy in his youth and notes that during his four years at Oxford, he did about 1000 hours of work (equating to about an hour-and-a-half for each day.) This earned him the anger of his teachers. At the end of his four years, the deans were not sure if he deserved a first-class or second-class degree, on account of the quality of his work. Hawking said that a first-class degree would get him into Cambridge; otherwise he would have to stay at Oxford for his graduate work. The deans gave him a first-class degree.

He played himself in Star Trek: La nouvelle génération (1987), Les Simpson (1989), Futurama (1999) and The Big Bang Theory (2007).

His electronic voice was used in the song "Keep Talking" by the rock band Pink Floyd from their album "The Division Bell" (1994). He later provided voice work on their song "Talkin' Hawkin'", released on their final album "The Endless River" (2014).

He was awarded many honorary degrees and was a Fellow of The Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

He acquired (the incurable) amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) in the early 1960s. He was given less than two years to live but survived for more than fifty. Towards the end of his life, he could barely move or talk...but could still think. And humankind continues as beneficiary of this man's brilliance.

He was not a particularly good student until he started studying science in school.

His birthday was two days after that of Eddie Redmayne, who played him in Une merveilleuse histoire du temps (2014). When Redmayne pointed this out, saying they are both Capricorns, Hawking replied "I'm an astronomer, not an astrologist.".

He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1982 Queen's Honours List and the CH (Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour) in the 1989 Queen's Honours List for his services to science.

Hawking was portrayed by actors including Benedict Cumberbatch (in the television movie Hawking: La Tête dans les Étoiles (2004)) and Eddie Redmayne (in Une merveilleuse histoire du temps (2014)), but appeared as himself in series including Star Trek: La nouvelle génération (1987), Les Simpson (1989) and The Big Bang Theory (2007). Coincidentally, when Redmayne won an Oscar for playing him, Cumberbatch was nominated for playing another famous English scientist: Alan Turing (in Imitation Game (2014)).

He directed at least fifteen years before his death that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy equation be his epitaph.

He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama on July 30, 2009, the highest civilian honor in the United States, at a White House ceremony for his services to science.

He passed away on Albert Einstein's 139th birthday and was interred near the graves of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

In 1978, he received an honorary B.A. degree from Oxford University and a Ph.D from Cambridge (1981), Notre Dame (1982) and New York University (1982). He received a First Class honours degree from Oxford (1962) and a Ph.D from Cambridge (1966).

He had an Erdös-Bacon-Sabbath number of 8, which ties him with Karl Schaffer for the lowest known EBS number on the planet.

He is mentioned in the song "Real Love" by the rock band Yes from their album "Talk" (1994), and in 'Weird Al' Yankovic's song "White and Nerdy" from his album "Straight Outta Lynwood" (2005).

Son of Isobel Eileen (Walker) and Frank Hawking. His father was English, from Yorkshire. His mother was Scottish, with roots in Glasgow.

He passed away on March 14, 2018. March 14th is also known as "Pi Day" because the date can be written as 3.14.

He was passionate about the music of Austrian composer Josef Franz Wagner.

He was a vocal critic of U.S. President Donald Trump. He was also a professed atheist.

The Formulae engraved at Westminster Abbey in his honour has "THC" in its algebraic portion.

On January 8, 2022, he was honored with a Google Doodle on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

His ideas have transformed the human understanding of the cosmos.

During a TV interview, a camera operator pulled out a cable from a socket to adjust the lighting. An alarm sounded immediately afterwards, and Hawking slumped forwards. Believing that they had accidentally turned off his life support and killed him, visitors rushed over to him, only to find him alive and giggling about his own joke. The alarm actually came from an office computer losing its power supply.

He was widely regarded as one of the world's most brilliant theoretical physicists.

He appeared in television commercials for Jaguar automobiles in the United Kingdom (2016).