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Film Biopic Lends Hope
“The Theory of Everything”

12-01-14 

The human episode involving a scientist’s life, who was seemingly on his way to a successful life and career but for some reason stricken by a disease known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is the depiction of the film The Theory of Everything.  The film is said to be adopted from the memoir by Jane Wilde Hawking, Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen.

Although the disease deteriorates motor neurons practically rendering the body limp, Stephen Hawking somehow prevailed beyond a two-year life expectancy toward a life that yielded new scientific findings and a pursuit of family.  

When time came to test the integrity of the ALS survivor, whose cerebral brain remain preserved, lectures were held in various parts of the world.  The scientist spoke fluently, spirited, and humorously through a specially designed speech-generating synthesizer, even correcting his questioners when they pressed the subjects of theoretical physics and esotericism.

Hawking ends the discussion with the message “..while there’s life, there is hope”, a message that one may think is primarily intended for a rare set of disability cases similar to himself.  To a cosmologist, however, there could be perhaps a more extended meaning:

Beyond the Earth, within the vast Universe, is there at all a scant sign of an organism, even a hint of organic matter, some sign or trace of cultured-water; or is it an endless void of continuous space - dry, empty, lifeless ?  No.  It is believed there is life out there.  There is life here, in this world, Earth.  From afar however, beyond our solar system, it is the smallest orb distinguishable, only a small speck (a pale blue dot).

1.  ".. while there's life, there is hope."  -  S. Hawking
2.  ".. pale blue dot."  -  C. Sagan

 

Is There a "Theory of Everything" ?