Stephen Hawking kept scripts from The Simpsons and X-Files among works on theoretical physics
Stephen Hawking kept scripts from television shows The Simpsons, The X-Files and Futurama along with his works on theoretical physics, it has emerged.
A catalogue of the late scientist’s personal papers has been made available for study by the Cambridge University Library.
Among the thousands of documents, Hawking kept scripts for episodes of The Simpsons in which he starred, with his own lines highlighted.
The physicist, known for his work on black holes, also kept copies of his written dialogue for the animated sci-fi comedy Futurama, in which he also appeared, and sci-fi drama The X-Files.
Hawking voiced himself in three episodes of The Simpsons, and his personal copies of three of these scripts are now available to researchers.
Other personal papers include a letter to his parents from 1986, which Hawking dictated using his famous communication system, which he acquired after his tracheostomy the same year.
“I’m writing this letter on my new computer, which also speaks but a bit like a Dalek with an American accent,” he said in the letter.
“It is very useful for communicating but it is too big to carry around.
“However I have another one, which I may be able to get fixed to my chair.”
Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1964 at the age of 22 and given just a few years to live. He died in 2018 aged 76.
There are tens of thousands of pages of papers relating to his work in the collection, as well as photographs and souvenirs from his encounters with popes, presidents and the public across 113 boxes of archive material.
Letters in the archive also highlight the Gonville and Caius College research fellow’s campaigning role for scientific colleagues trapped behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, and for disability rights.
In a letter to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, from 1978, Hawking wrote that there were “no facilities at all for disabled people”.
He cited the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 and demanded better access to the building.
In a further letter, in 1982, he told Sir John Tooley, the general director of the Royal Opera House: “I wrote to you a few years ago about the lack of facilities for disabled people in the Royal Opera House.
“I knew that you had recently spent a lot of money on improvements so I expected the situation would now be better.
“However, on my visit to the Meistersinger last night I found the arrangements were just as bad as ever.
“I had to be carried to my seat by two attendants, carried out and back again during the interval and carried out at the end when they succeeded in dropping me.
“It was not the fault of the attendants, they did their best, but there is no proper provision for the disabled.”
Susan Gordon, an archivist who has spent the past 28 months cataloguing the collection, said: “The Library’s Stephen Hawking Archive documents not only his journey to becoming one of the pre-eminent theoretical physicists of his time, but also how his efforts to communicate science to a general audience catapulted him to the status of pop cultural icon.
“He started using assistive technology for communication, both written and spoken, during the digital revolution and it was fascinating to see how he interacted with developments in computer technology.
“The archive will be a unique resource for researchers interested in Hawking’s scientific work and academic life, his personal life, popular science communication, disability rights, assistive technology, and celebrity.
“No single thread sits in isolation, they were interwoven in the tapestry of Hawking’s life, including glimpses into how he felt about their convergence.
“I hope the release of the catalogue and the improved access it provides will allow others to be as rewarded as I was by interacting with the archive.”
The catalogue publication and public availability of the Hawking Archive coincides with a special collection of Hawking papers in the latest issue of the Science Museum Group Journal.
The Science Museum is home to Hawking’s former office – a unique collection of more than 1,000 objects transferred from the University of Cambridge in 2021.
Hawking’s family wanted his work to be made freely available to future generations of scientists and struck an acceptance in lieu agreement with the UK Government, the Science Museum Group and Cambridge University Library.
The agreement means thousands of pages of Hawking’s scientific and other papers remain in Cambridge, while objects including his wheelchairs, speech synthesisers, and personal memorabilia are displayed at the Science Museum.
