Students meet physicist Stephen Hawking

World renowned physicist Stephen Hawking told a visiting group of Maltese students who called on him at Cambridge University that he was glad to have been of use to science in Malta.

His contribution came in the form of a project for Grade 4 students which was called the Stephen Hawking Physics Project.

The visiting students, from San Andrea Senior School in l-Imselliet, limits of Mgarr, were led by their science teacher Paul Borg, headmaster Evan DeBrincat and science coordinator Therese Cacciatolo.

Considered the greatest mind in physics since Albert Einstein, Prof. Hawking is famous for his ability to communicate arcane matters not just to other physicists but to the public.

His achievements are all the more remarkable since he has suffered from motor neurone disease for much of his life. He uses a wheelchair and speaks through a computer and voice synthesizer.

After receiving his PhD from Cambridge University, Hawking stayed on and became known for his pioneering ideas and use of Einstein's formulas.

The visit to Cambridge was a prize for students who topped the list of candidates in the science project coordinated by Mr Borg.

The project included an assignment and a seminar idea for Grade 4 students which Mr Borg called the Stephen Hawking Physics Project.

"The whole idea was to make students understand that physics is a build-up of knowledge of the laws of nature and the application of this understanding to make changes that will result in a better life for everyone.

"Prof. Hawking is a role model for dedicated research, study and investigation in spite of the physical difficulties he came up against," Mr Borg said.

The prize went to a group of students made up of Gorana Pecotic, Jasmine Azzopardi and Roxanne Vella, who placed first in the project.

At 32, Prof. Hawking received the Albert Einstein Award, the most prestigious in theoretical physics, and in 1979 he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge.

In 1988, he wrote A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, detailing the evolution of his thinking about the cosmos.

"My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all...

"I have been lucky that my condition has progressed more slowly than is often the case. But it shows that one need not lose hope," Prof. Hawking wrote on his website.