mitch landrieu will be at st. joseph's college in brooklyn to talk about his decision to remove four confederate statues last year. there is a we 5 w. to the nixon presidential library in california where second lady karen pens at her daughter share their story of their pet rabbit and his time in the vice president's residence. thursday through saturday, charlottesville, virginia, the virginia festival of the book. that is look at the happenings booktv will be covering this week. many are open to the public. look for them to air in the near future on booktv on c-span2. biographer kitty ferguson's look at the life of physicist stephen hawking who died this past wednesday at the age of 76. >> and unfettered mind, stephen hawking, his life at work. some of you may already know

hawking's science well. everybody knows something about him as a person. his disability, his legendary courage, his unlikely celebrity, and a few ugly rumors about him as well but he is more than a legend or celebrity. he is a real person and it has been my luck to get to know him a little bit. i wouldn't claim to be inaccurate as well. and more than 2 or 3 people in the world know stephen hawking well and even they have their doubts. the way he communicates, and always something of a distance.

and he has no body language. his synthetic computer voice, his computer voice conveys no emotion whatsoever. when you're sitting with him you often wonder whether he is telling a joke or not but he does have facial expressions still. the people who made that star trek episode had him playing a poker game with isaac newton, albert einstein, and star trek's data. most people were amazed at the variety of his facial expressions which doesn't sound like it would recommend itself that highly for a poker game. evidently he impressed them with that. he lost some of that mobility since then but still has that great big wonderful grin. history of my book started 18

months ago when my publisher in great britain asked me to update a little book they had published, 20 years ago. called stephen knocking, a quest for a theory of everything. they published that is a paperback and it had become a new york times bestseller in britain. what they wanted now was to add and update chapter so they could make it into an e-book which had never been done before. i began to work on it and soon realized a little updating and tweaking of those earlier chapters wasn't going to do it and i ended up writing a new book which cannibalized the old book. it is critical of him in some places, not completely

complementary but he did give his blessings to the writing of it but he did not have any control about what i said. i passed by the quotations used. that is the only control he had. so much had happened since 1989, so much new material about relationships in his life, before 1989 that i covered, a completely new book. the research was not entirely in scientific papers, scientific journals, newspaper articles, my husband is an

academic and his field is global studies, global economics, global history, everything to do with globalism and we have many friends - during the 20 years since i wrote the first book about stephen hawking, these clippings from all over the world, i put them away in a box and last year got out the box so that my bibliography includes things like south china morning news, west australian from perth, the hindu times, things like that, you might get the oppression kitty ferguson does exhaustive research all over the world but it is thanks to those clippings that were sent to me. another slightly unorthodox source was cambridge, england, itself. my husband and i live there part of every year. we have been going there ever since we first went on sabbatical in 1986.

everywhere you go, you encounter people with stories to tell about stephen hawking. the woman who cuts my hair has a relative working on a house when stephen hawking's wheelchair slipped on the ice and turned over in this young man was first to cover him with the jacket and call the emergency people. someone else had an automobile accident and the driver of the other car, stephen hawking gaps first wife. a lot of people at the college were affiliated with claire hall because carrying stephen up and down the stairs before that college had an elevator, it was called the astronomy group at that time. it is not gossip. just interesting little

incidents. stephen hawking lived in that town 50 years and it is a small town. one challenge in writing this book was to be certain i was writing the book stephen hawking, not the legend of stephen hawking. any biographer has an almost a resistible urge to fictionalize their subject and i do wonder what i did to kepler. it is more of a problem when it is historical but there you get all the information you can and do the best you can. when it is somebody that is still alive you have a certain obligation to them to make it a little more real, to keep it a little more authentic. i had the advantage of going in fairly often to talk with him. not a lot but occasionally when i had a new book coming out,

asked him a question, sometimes i would go in for that purpose, and when i was writing this book, i would see him in person and think about what i had written about him, wasn't quite right, i have gone astray from the real stephen hawking, fictionalized him a little bit. it is easy to do. the choice of a word, tone of a paragraph, the urge to make something a little more dramatic or little more funny. so easy to do and hard to resist. i also felt obliged to respect to a certain extent, to a large extent his own interpretation of himself in a way you couldn't do with a historical figure. some reviewers have taken me to task for writing too uncritical a biography. the biography that i might write 15 years after he died

when you really can step back and evaluate a person a little better than you can when they are still alive but it is not uncritical. it is critical in places. i wonder what he would think. he is known to get very angry with writers and people who try to interpret his life, but there was no mushroom cloud over cambridge, england and my invitation to the 72 birthday party was not revoked so i think it passed muster, or else he didn't read it all. many of you know that i'm not a mathematician or scientist by training although science and mathematics have been part of my life since i was a small child. my degrees are in music from the juilliard school and i'm often asked why was page 48 that i decided to put all that aside and start writing books

and lecturing about science, science history and scientists for the popular market, for intelligent people who aren't scientists. we all hear that there is a connection between music and mathematics but you don't often hear of a musician deciding to write a science book, not unheard of, some people said juilliard had an outstanding physics department. that is not the reason. i never took physics at juilliard so i don't know. i was reading a brief history of time. it was a watershed in my life. i did understand, i had to work at it but i understood it and i thoroughly enjoyed it. my husband is mystified remembering he would watch me giggling while i read it. it is an enjoyable book. there are a lot of funny things in it. i must shared my enthusiasm for

the science with my daughter, my 8 year mac daughter because she decided to do a science fair project on black holes. she rented a library and came home with several books on black holes, the big black book, by wheeler called gravitation. you know that book. she is very intelligent, well grown up, she is something of a whiz in genetics, she is not a prodigy, there is a lot of that. we talked about it a lot and danced around the living room pretending we were photons, particle pairs, event horizon of a black hole.

the shop was caitlin came up with an award-winning project. it was a wonderful project and i decided to write a book for children or young people her age or a little bit older about blackhole's. i have to mention at the conference that preceded stephen hawking's 70 through birthday party, i met john wheeler, i have met charles, i met him but the conversation i mentioned dancing around the living room, he was quite delighted by that and said that is probably the only time my book has been choreographed. and i'm sure it was. i decided to write a children's book on black holes and that decision led to my first meeting with stephen hawking. it wasn't easy to get an

appointment. i got in touch with his secretary, his personal assistant and she kept saying if i will make an appointment i will get back to you, this continued not to happen to the point it became embarrassing to keep phoning her about it. i decided to try and end run. i knew he often worked late with his graduate assistant in the office after everyone had left. i suspected in the evening, the phone that would normally bring in her office would bring in his office. i gave that a try. the graduate assistant answered and he was right there with stephen hawking and i told him what i wanted and he said i will ask stephen and get back to you.

i thought that is the end of that. two minutes later he phoned back and said stephen would be happy to help you if you want to come in tomorrow at 5:30. this was quite interesting. i was getting over the flu at that time and afraid of taking germs, i went to the doctor the next morning to make sure i was not taking any germs to stephen hawking and i remember that this affected my voice. i was talking like that. i think i sounded like jackie kennedy. at 5:30 the next day, arrived at 5:30, and the common room, was completely dark except a little outline of light around stephen hawking a store. the young lady who brought me from reception showed me the way, paused, shall i knock? and she said i haven't the

slightest idea. i thought is he that frightening? this is ridiculous. but i thought, i felt a little bit like dorothy going to the wizard of oz for the first time. it was intimidating. usually when you go to visit stephen hawking you have somebody brief you a little bit. his graduate assistant will tell you you don't sit across the desk from him. there is a chair there but you don't sit there, you sit beside him so you can both see his computer screen where he is choosing the words to make up his sentences. you are also told you don't second-guess him. let him find the word, let him finish his sentence even if you very well where it is going into will take in ten minutes to get there, you wait. once he has created that across

the bottom of his screen you don't have to wait for him to cause his computer voice to say it. you can continue the conversation. i didn't know any of that. the only other person was a young man, one of his nurses who was there for the first time that evening, we were both equally examined. there was stephen hawking looking more devastatingly disabled than i expected. i waited, wasn't sure if i should start the conversation but this time he was controlling his computer with a handheld mouth like device. his voice said hello. things became more comfortable. he was comfortable with this odd, bizarre situation so i was too. talking with him very quiet,

making his words on the screen. it is very quiet, very peaceful but at the same time charged with energy and mechanical noises. and and his research. and what they didn't know the answers to. thought i'd better talk with him. i don't flatter myself these were such advanced questions, they were such naïve questions they were having trouble answering. and then it is for someone more experienced in the field. i found john wheeler at cambridge, perfectly happy to answer the most naïve questions. he was always good at that.

as the interview went on. and i began to read it. and sounded so stuffy and boring. and i'm sorry it sounds so stuffy and boring. and this is serious science and must be treated seriously. stephen hawking answered it should be fun. i said i know it should be fun and i don't know how to convince my editor. he clicked a little more and the oracle spoke. tell him i said so. and i didn't have any trouble with my editor after that.

and and all his science. and many young people, he doesn't try to explain his science, tried to take us along on this adventure. i had a backstage experience of all that when in 2000 he was writing universe in a nutshell and my publisher in new york, adam doubleday dell asked me whether they hired me to edit the book. to make it simpler. and more easy to understand, stephen was okay with that.

and she had some doubts as to whether it fits together. and made margins through that and some were not complementary. she send the whole thing to him, this is ridiculous but he was okay with that. and we worked for a couple months, i was in the united states and went over to cambridge to spend a couple weeks in his office. there we were facing the screen where he was choosing his words and another screen that has the manuscript of the book on it. i prepared carefully for this by knowing exactly which phrases, which paragraphs i was going to bring to his attention. so i said stephen, i think the

words are too much physics jargon, it needs to be stated in everyday words, if we can do that. so a little clicking and his voice said it seems clear to me. we really are in trouble. this is not going to work. then i looked over him and i saw this big smile and he was looking at me wondering how i was going to take that and i knew he was having me on. it all worked very well. he was very conscientious taking my advice about what was too difficult. in many ways that i would have rewritten it to make it simple. analogies, suggestions. he didn't take my suggestions, he did it all himself his own

way which -- i helped him write that book and heaven for bid i collaborated with him and i hear that sometimes when people are talking, some reviewers in the book, that is not true. i was was a guinea pig, to try it on and see where it needed to be simpler but i think that book turned out very well and i like to think i did contribute something by telling him what needed to be simpler. so when people ask me what it is that has won him office worldwide attention and made him such a popular and well-known figure, and such a celebrity, one of the things i point files to is the way he makes his science such an adventure for his all. another part of the explanation is that the area of science he

works in, does conjure up a sense of wonder, a sense of treading in the borderlands of human knowledge. black holes, origin of the universe, questions about whether the loss of information in black holes undermines physics, the possibility that our universe is one of perhaps an infinite number of universes connected by wormholes perhaps. he does to venture and try to take us with him to those remote outposts where the note meets the unknown and unknowable. and the flaming ramparts of the world. it borders on science fiction to us but stephen was asked if he had ever written science fiction and his answer was i

hope not. his 62 birthday, his colleague, gary gibbons in his tribute quoted the poet robert browning saying a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what is heaven for? wasn't implying stephen had gone beyond his depth and should be forgiven for it. at least i don't think that is what he meant. but stephen asked unanswerable questions. things like what is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes the universe for them to describe? why is there something rather than nothing? why does the universe go to the bother of existing? these questions stray into philosophy and religion, questions more cautious, sensible scientists seldom ask. they are irrelevant to the

every day perception of most science. even though the cover of his book, the grand design, promises this book is going to tell us the ultimate answers, it doesn't actually. stephen goes on asking the questions which ever since then he is still going on saying i long to know these answers. also, in the same book, he writes that it is meaningless to answer whether the answers he proposes or anyone else proposes really represent reality. and his more dogmatic reductionist atheistic statements that he often makes to the media seem not quite stephen hawking. whether you agree with them or not they are a little too earthbound, more so than he usually is. it wouldn't be correct to stop with his science to explain his

appeal. he would probably wish it otherwise but his disability and the astonishing good-humored way he simply dismisses that disability. are a vital part of his public image. author oliver sacks who wrote awakening and the man who mistook his wife for a hat wrote about a kind of health of strength, of grace that go beyond the depth of any illness and he could have been describing stephen hawking. another of the questions i am frequently asked about stephen is what is his most significant contribution to science? most of his academic colleagues would say it would be his

establishment that black holesy blackbody radiation also known as hawking radiation. this was an unexpected discovery in the 1970s was unexpected to stephen, unexpected to the rest of the scientific community. it took some time to be accepted. he got to ridicule at first. but it has stood the test of time it is likely to stand the test of more time. since then, his work has become more speculative. testing big ideas, throwing out mind-boggling suggestions and proposals and dealing with fundamental questions. for instance, no boundary theory for the origin of the universe in which the very early universe, the dimension we think of time, fourth space dimension. what he has written to assume

the number is correct, it is safe to build other theories on the no boundary condition as he calls it. a great majority of his colleagues would not agree, don't accept it to that degree. his other proposals, the labyrinth, these were very speculative things and he spoke to his colleague kip foreign. i would rather be right than rigorous. signaled a shift in his way of doing things. it took too long to underpin anything that was unassailable mathematics. to miss the forest for the trees and would prefer to be 90% certain then move on.

they have not received the same level of acceptance has hawking radiation has. and they do serve a different purpose, throws out these ideas, a lot of activity, and stephen is right. it is not all for nothing, throwing out science fiction. in spite of his tendency to become more speculative, one of his most recent contributions, and in this book, something i didn't realize he had done but he pointed me to the papers, to suggest a way of determining from evidence available in the universe, the cosmic microwave

background radiation. whether or not our universe is part of a multi-verse suggested by internal inflation. it is not just wild speculation, he made a proposal that can be tested or potentially can be tested. we have to wait for data from the planck satellite and beyond that. .. you have a personal storyline that you expect my biography beginning with his childhood in a loving and very eccentric family. moving and a drafty spooky house. following his child visiting with peers, his days were he did presently no work

whatsoever. and then the first year graduate student at cambridge when he was diagnosed with lou gehrig's disease. his courtship later to be -- was very moving because it took place in the context of his coming to terms with his disease and her coming to terms with it. not only with the disease and disability but the prospect of what at that time that it was going to be a very early death only being given two years to live.then he goes on to the birth of his children, the failure of the first marriage. the second marriage, all of the things you would expect from a biography.i also included my own experiences with him that i mentioned already and there is just a cornucopia of science, not only is most interested in

then there's also that college was a black hole, the singularity, information is it lost? so many things. i mean i keep encountering things that he never met and they hear about always a document which is thumbprint. this event activity. and i explained what i hope slightly is a simpler level than he has explained in his own books. it is one of my great joys to find ways to explain things simply in ways that can be understood. my father was a musician but he also loved mathematics and science. he read a lot of science. and he said was not he never

felt he understood anything until he can explain to us kids. and that was when i was nine years old. if he could not explain it to us he didn't really understand it. and also, the integration to be at wheeling. princeton and the way he did little drawings and things to explain things. one of the greatest compliment i have ever had was when my drawings were put on his office door. he didn't put there to show what should be done. [laughter] but one of my favorite reviews of any of my books was when that appeared in periodicals that i think was called the taxi drivers times. and this review said, this was a review of my first stephen hawking book in 1989. it said, this is the book that

tells of what the blooding health the history of time was all about. for those who never made it past chapter 2. [laughter] and i thought well, i thought 22 years later i am still taken with that explanation. if you follow science chronologically through his life, as i have done in the book rather than getting piecemeal as we often do. you discover that he had rather healthy diet of pulling up the rug from under himself. of all of the stereotypes that have plagued men and women of science, surely, one has brought harm peer science can be, scientists can be pictured as evil, mad, cold,

self-centered, absent-minded, even square yet survive easily. unfortunately, there are often pictured as bright. that can distort the picture science stephen hawking is certainly, he seemed to have done his best to erase the stereotype by changing his mind so quickly. in his visitation in the 1960s he concluded that the universe had to have begun as a singularity that everything was compressed into a point of infinite density. and no hope of a scientific explanation breaks down. however, in 1980, he returned to contemplating the early universe this time bringing in powerful reinforcements from

quantum theory and discovered that using imaginary time with his mathematical device that allows the time dimension to become space dimension, chronological time is our meeting, the singularity, and the universe doesn't really have a beginning. meanwhile, he had discovered that the area of the event horizon, the board of a black hole can never get smaller. and then he discovered that it could get smaller. and the upshot of that was another reversal. for years after insisting that everything happened has happened or will happen, is determined by their god or a theory of everything. he came up with something called the information paradox. he threw a curve to his

colleagues with this one. the question is, what happens when a black hole grows smaller and smaller and eventually disappears entirely? what happens to the things that were trapped inside it? what happens, where does it all go? stephen was insisting all this information trapped in a black hole was lost irretrievably from our universe. nacvely, it is not really a problem, is it? i mean a store that collapsed, maybe some gases. traditionally, if you unmatched socks are in there were astronauts we should not have gone in there in the first place and should have known better but you know, this is pretty trivial we talked about having lost this to the universe but that is not the case. such information lost threatened to undermine the whole physics and much of our everyday wheelbarrow life. they sort of predictability that science depends on as well

as your and my reliance on effect and cause and potentially undermine by loss of information from our universe. now in 2004, he came up with what he felt was a solution to this problem. so we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. but some of his colleagues such as roger penrose think that his arguments for the information paradox were more powerful than his solutions. but as with all of the rug pulling was enough, it all seems minor in contrast to his most recent announcement that he suspects that is not going to be possible for anyone ever to discover the theory of the universe. the theory of everything. which is something he spent in

his life searching for. we can only know approximations to the underlying theories. approximations, the court really think about it, one super gravity. but we don't know how to formulate a deeper theory of a single set of equations. and arguably, we never will. so, that is a huge turn on for him. there's another change in his thinking. a change in his attitude toward the anthropic principle. for the anthropic thinking. in case you need reminding answers the question why is the universe as we observe it so perfectly fine tuned for our emergence of intelligent life and our existence? that fine-tuning at the origin

of the universe is so precise and so unlikely as it seems to be nothing short of miraculous. the anthropic answer again, in its simplest form, to the question, why do observe the universe this in this way is that if it were otherwise, we wouldn't be around to observe it at all adjust the question. now, stephen hawkins attitude toward that anthropic answer, when he had -- having all with good fortune as he put it, a council of despair. and all of our hopes of understanding the underlying order of the universe. but lately he has been attributing a great deal of power to anthropic thinking and thinking causes top-down approach. when he and jim hartl were developing their no boundary proposal in the 1980s, they use the device invented by the

american physicist, richard feynman. called -- in that it involved tracing all possible histories of our universe. and then calculating which are more likely than others.which were more probable. it is not as if he did not do that with the history of our universe. we don't have concrete knowledge about point a, the beginning. although we do know quite a bit about point be, where we are today. you can imagine a lot possible point a, a lot of possible beginnings. but a lot of them are not as fine tuned that we know the universe had to be to produce us as we are now at point b. we need a very special specific point a. it seems we do. by what miracle was point a -- stephen hawking recommends we

look at all from a different perspective. when he calls his top-down approach. tracing the alternative histories of the universe. not from point a to point b, but backwards from point b to point a. our presence at point b, the effect of our being here, by living in this universe dictates which histories this universe could and could not have had. in a sense, we create the history of the universe by being here. and by observing it. take for example, the fact that we have four dimensions for observable dimensions in our universe. three of space and one of time. and the m. there is no overall rule that universe would have three dimensional space and one of time. it includes every number from 0 to 10 space dimensions and even

as some versions, more than one time dimension. health three dimensions of space and one of time may not be the most probable situation. but never mind that, in the top-down thinking, three dimensions of space and one of time is the only situation that is of interest to us. considering the universe in the old way from the bottom up, this seems to be no discoverable reason why the laws of nature are what they are and not something different. but we do observe the laws of nature to be what they are. and we are here. so hawking says, why not start with that? our presence is hugely significant. and as he restates the anthropic principle, obviously when the beings on the planet

that supports life examine the world around them, they're bound to find that their environment satisfies the conditions they required to exist. just as we, by the fact of our presence of the universe we also choose the history of our earth and our cosmic environment that allows us to exist. that is the top-down approach. now, you might expect hawking, this is his top-down cosmology. that he is preaching now. to say that we, the observers, are the answer to the fundamental question, why is there something rather than nothing? what is it that makes it universe for them to describe? maybe we are where the buck stops. maybe where the first cause. maybe we do not even need a creator. our presence chooses that all the rest of dust that exist and no other argument is possible are required. but he doesn't use that argument. he doesn't use that in his book, the grand design and he did not use in an a discussion he and i had in november 2010.

whenever i asked stephen a question i tried to put in a form that he can answer yes or no. while it saves time. but he doesn't usually stop. he usually goes on to talk but i try. but i mention the question he posed in history of time. what is it that breathes fire into the equation it makes the universe for them to describe? you can top-down, is the answer us? and he answered no. that was the end of that matter. it would be interesting to hear him in a discussion with john wheeler who of course is no longer with us. john wheeler proposed something called the observer dependent universe. in which we cannot have the laws of physics, the laws of nature, no universe can exist unless there are observers. which makes you wonder if there were no observers, if we disappear from the scene and

there are no longer any service, will there be a history of the universe anymore? it's a very interesting question. but it is this same way of thinking, this top-down way of thinking. now, whenever i finish the draft of a book, i have my has invaded because the husband is in global studies. he is not a scientist but he is a very good example of the target audience for my books. intelligent people who are not scientists. he claims that he can understand it, anybody can but he is not really that -- but he read where i quoted stephen hawking as saying something about that he is still a child is never grown up. still asking how and why questions. and occasionally, finding an answer that satisfies him. my has been read that occasionally funding answer that satisfies him and he

penned in, for it while, and i thought, yes i left that in the book. that is stephen hawking, that is the nature of his adventure. find the answer that satisfies him but pretty soon he is often a new direction. sometimes undermining what he said previously. what will be stephen hawkins legacy? what will let's see -- any of you young enough to be alive maybe 30 or 50 years from now? yes, yes. what will be be saying about him then? i know when he would like. he would like to be remembered for his science. federal could forget about the fact that he had never been disabled that would be fine with him. i think of the author, don milton. the poet, john milton that wrote paradise lost. and he wrote that when he was completely blind. most people don't really know that. that is that we think of when you think of john milton. i looked up on wikipedia and

there's no mention of his blindness until way down, many paragraphs. and it's just mentioned in passing. i thought, wouldn't stephen love that? to have himself remembered for science and nobody would think of the fact that he was disabled. but what of his science? we don't know what will be remembered. will the no boundary proposal ever become part of mainstream of theoretical physics and cosmology? or will it just be an interesting beautiful proposal that has never had that much impact or acceptance. will people go on being troubled and walking around with the information paradox? will things like the invention of his, a -- around the year 2000. it seems to be sitting on the shelf now and stephen wasn't paying attention to it. what about things in that? will they be remembered? i think that his legacy

definitely will be twofold. if nothing else. first, the excitement he has generated about science. and cosmology. when i attended academic competence that preceded his 70th birthday back in january, i encountered all of these, it was interesting because it had all the great eminences of his field and it had all of these young people too. and among the young people, they were physicists that already are really contributing to the field. their well-known. they are really doing exciting work. some of them are stevens former students and some were not. but again and again, i heard them say or heard someone say, i was reading a brief history of time when i was a teenager. that got me into this field. that is why i am working in cosmology and science today. that is a huge legacy. that is a wonderful thing.

and also, second, i think he will continue to stand as a towering example of courage and determination and good humor in the face of an overwhelming obstacle. a real-life demonstration that when human beings can accomplish, the kind of things that they can face and the kind of work they can do. the great things can be accomplished and life can even be splendid. and it doesn't always have to be when the sun is shining and when you are in the peak of health. as you may know, stephen hawking did not get to his 70th birthday party. he was too ill, he was in the hospital and very seriously ill. indeed, i think most people, everything is happens everyone thinks that is the end. but this time it seemed worse than usual. but i just had an email this week from his secretary. she put it that by sheer huge effort of determination, he is back in the office.

he is there, the first time he is actually on a respirator. most of the time, which not before, nevertheless he is intending and marsha come to texas for the conference at cook's branch. he is intended to look to caltech. and this is a man who just won't be defeated by his physical problems. it's amazing! i am the same age as stephen. i turned 70, 350 appreciated. and i did tell him he better respect his elders! i will not be around 50 years from now. not unless you have a huge breakthrough in health. but as long as i am alive, i will remember how much a brief history of time awoke in me. and as long as we are exploring that science and the fact that none of my books would have been written if i had not

encountered him. his wonderful self mocking humor and a wonderful smile, that could light the universe. he really has had a tough road through life. if you talk of it in terms of the bridge game, he was dubbed a ridiculously unbalanced hand. and he certainly made a grand slam of it. he set an example for all of us. and i know that, not everything he has done has been so laudable. he can be arrogant and certainly stubborn. he can be self-centered and maybe he has to be self-centered to survive. but i've gotten to know him just a little. and i really like the man. so, thank you. [applause]

so, does anybody have any questions? if you're one of my basic audiences, i used to give talks on black holes with a scientifically enough. and i do not think you fit that category. but i always say, you know, don't be afraid to ask nacve questions. i'm sure no one here would ask a nacve question but you're welcome to do it. but you are welcome to do it. i also to say that stephen hawkins sent were known as depression and is either known or understood anything for everybody understood everything. this was that kind of a lecture. but anyway, with that encouragement. yes? >> he has children? >> yes, he has three children. the same age as my children so they've got to be about 43, 44, 41 and 31 in age.

[inaudible question] >> his oldest son is in information technology. he has a degree from he was in, let me see which college, cambridge, corpus christi i think. but he was a natural science major but i'm not sure to be exact when, physics i guess. but that is what he does now. and his mother, jane hawking credits that was something that he was interested was really brought to a head when he was just a kid. they had a sabbatical at caltech. and he met another boy who was really into and that is what got him interested. i think so often, i have experienced this myself. many what sabbatical it becomes a watershed for the entire family. in the case of my husband, is when i start writing about science and we went on sabbatical. our children look at that too, as a watershed.

his daughter has written a couple of children's books with stephen. they're called george's cosmic adventure, george's key to the universe. their wonderful books! i wonder if you have them in the library. do you have them? i will have to tell her, i recommend them. they are wonderful! they are fiction. they are about a boy named george and was interesting is he meets a scientist who lived next door to him. who is so clearly, stephen hawking as he would be without his disability. it is so clear, he is the same person. but anyway, then they have these adventures. and it is sort of science fiction but there are huge sections of the book that are kind of removed from the book. different colored print and that of the sections of the real science. there is a lot about black holes. various things like that.

their wonderful books! they are really terrific. yes? >> you touch on this a little bit but didn't he get some notoriety for saying that he did believe in god and god was reconciled you know, science and then reverse himself as you were saying that -- >> i don't think he has ever said that he believes in god. in the brief history of time, he talked about the no boundary proposal and how because it wipes out the beginning, there is no beginning to the universe. and it wipes out the need for a creator. and he has made some very atheistic statements to the media about, believing in the afterlife is a fairytale because we are all computers and with computer and gives up it just dies. and when reduction is the idea of our self.

i think somebody said yeah but, you know you can take the whole intellectual content of computer and put it on a memory stick. is that like reincarnation? [laughter] but i did get a question about his religious beliefs when i gave a talk in cambridge. and i said that stephen hawking, before i encountered him at all, i thought i believed the old statement that there are no atheists in foxholes. and he is definitely in a foxhole.but when i said i made a mistake and i said, there are no atheists in wormholes. [laughter] it just got quite a laugh from all of these -- [laughter] no, but he then he what else? he tends to make statements to

the press. one thing that i would personally hate to see as part of his legacy would be to turn a whole lot of intelligent young people into unthinking atheists. i think decisions of belief and unbelief deserve a lot of consideration, deserve a lot of investigation. deserve a lot of experimentation actually. and shouldn't be made just because some charismatic figure like stephen hawking makes statements to the media. i think that would be an unfortunate legacy. so let's not and like that. anybody else? maybe that's that!

>> physicist stephen hawking died this past wednesday at the age of 76. he appeared on booktv and c-span several times in the last few years. you select any of those programs online just enter stephen hawking in the search bar at the top of the page. >> here's a look at some books being published this week. new orleans mayor details his decision to remove four statues of confederate soldiers from the city. in the shadow statues. economist -- offers his thoughts on how racial injustice impacts the wealth gap in discrimination and disparities. and michael trend squared, the best-selling author mike penn highlight innovations impacting politics, the economy and culture. journalist kristin tate reports only as a government taxes americans. and new york times editor wiseman offers his views on the

trump administration and semitism. also pictured number one, journalist -- reports and how family from rural china struggle to survive in new york city. with the age of eisenhower, historian william hitchcock follows the military and political career of the 34th president. historian jason -- because nations reaction to the death of martin luther king jr. and the heavens might crack. ancestral specifications center president and ceo, jeffrey rosen chronicles the political career president and chief justice william howard taft. look for these and bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors near future on booktv on c-span2. but welcome to the 10th annual