Wow. Stephen Hawking died on Pi Day. What are the odds?
But Hawking had a history of beating the odds, having lived with ALS for most of his life. When he was diagnosed with the disease at 21, the doctors projected that he would be dead within two years. Eventually, one of the most brilliant minds could communicate only through an adaptive word predictor that worked off of brain patterns and muscle movements.
Hawking wasn’t always optimistic about the future of the earth or mankind. However, he loved classical music (all forms of music, he claimed). At the age of 15, he jerry-rigged his own stereo system. His first record purchase was Igor Stravinsky’s “Symphony of Psalms,” which he picked out of a discount record bin. Later, Hawking was a regular visitor to Covent Garden. A Hawking-like character would appear in the Philip Glass opera “The Voyage” in 1992.
A little more about Hawking and classical music here:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/stephen-hawking-unveils-his-top-three-tunes
At the time of his death, Hawking was 76 years-old.
On a tangentially related note, Albert Einstein’s violin sold at auction at Bonhams New York on Friday for $516,500 – five times the auction house’s estimate. The violin was made in 1933 by Oscar H. Steger, a member of the Harrisburg (PA) Symphony Orchestra. Einstein gave the violin to Lawrence Wilson Hibbs, the son of Princeton janitor Sylas Hibbs. It remained in the Hibbs family to the present day.
https://www.bonhams.com/press_release/25709/
“Life without playing music was inconceivable for me. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music… I get most joy in life out of music.” – Albert Einstein
Happy Pi Day!
