Today in Technology History

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January 8

English physicist Stephen Hawking was born on January 8, 1942.

That Hawking is alive today to celebrate his 60th birthday is remarkable, considering that he first noticed symptoms of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) about four decades ago. Doctors estimated that Hawking had only a few years to live, and indeed he is mostly paralyzed, but he has survived and has became rich and famous writing about black holes, time travel and other astrophysical phenomena. But our topic today is the technology which allows Hawking to speak.

By the late 1970s, ALS had ravaged Hawking's ability to swallow and breathe -- making his speech so unintelligible that he required an interpreter to deliver lectures. In 1985, Hawking required an emergency tracheotomy -- an operation which "saved my life but took away my voice."

After communicating for a time by wiggling his eyebrows, Hawking was approached by an American computer programmer who designed a program for selecting words. The program can predict and complete the endings of words so they do not need to be entirely spelled out. The words can then be spoken by a speech synthesizer. The equipment, mounted on Hawking's wheelchair and controlled by flicking a few fingers on one hand, also lets him manage his surroundings (turning lights on and off, for example).

With the software, Hawking can write 15 words per minute, and with the speech synthesizer he has delivered lectures, participated in interviews, and appeared on popular TV shows. "The only trouble," he has said, "is that it gives me an American accent" -- but according to recent reports, that problem is being fixed.

Related links:

• Click here to read Hawking's description of his disability and the technology he uses to overcome it.

• Click here to read more about the technology used to help Hawking "talk."

• Click here for the homepage of the company that makes Hawking's communication software.

• Click here and here to read about the efforts to give Stephen Hawking a more British-sounding voice.

• Hawking has just published a new book; click here to read about it.

 

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