From: mk_thisisit
The speaker first met Stephen Hawking in the late 1990s while pursuing a PhD at Oxford, where Hawking was invited by Roger Penrose [00:01:01]. The relationship deepened when the speaker moved to Cambridge in 2003, at which point Hawking was still the head of their research group [00:01:14]. He led the Lucasian Department of Natural Sciences [00:01:23].
Active Participation Despite Disability
Despite his disability, Stephen Hawking actively participated in the scientific life of the department [00:01:28]. He would come to the department two or three times a week, attend seminars as much as he could, and ask questions [00:01:35].
Nature of Collaboration
The speaker clarified that they never directly worked with Stephen Hawking, noting that very few people did [00:01:47]. It was suggested that perhaps no one truly understood what was going on in his head [00:01:53].
Hawking communicated using a laptop screen, which he operated with a finger [00:01:59]. When asking him questions, it was important to give him time to type his answers rather than trying to guess what he wanted to say, as guessing made him nervous [00:02:07]. Due to his speech method, he spoke very little [00:02:30].
While he had doctoral students with whom he worked more closely, even then, a professor often acted as an intermediary to facilitate communication [00:02:34]. Occasionally, every few months, he would initiate a conversation by knocking on a door to discuss various topics [00:02:23].