Back in May, as part of the Intel Customer Reference Program at Catalysis, I had the opportunity to meet and work with Professor Stephen Hawking.
A video shoot was arranged with Intel Studios to film a customer reference video, based on the relationship between the University of Cambridge, their COSMOS supercomputer used for cosmology and the part that Intel® play.
So, on Thursday 5th May 2011, myself and my film crew headed to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge where Stephen (you can call him Stephen once you have formally addressed him as Professor, a bit like meeting the Queen) is Research Director. This was the first time in eight years that Stephen had undertaken such an exercise for one of his partners.
Stephen is a remarkable man. For a man of nearly 70 years old, he shows no sign of slowing down. Whilst interviews are usually conducted in a question/answer type format, we needed to treat Stephen slightly differently – a pre prepared, approved script was loaded into his computer and in one perfect take, we had captured what he wanted to say. It was fascinating to also understand that certain words need to go into the computer phonetically – for example Intel had to be spelt ‘Inn tel’ for it to sound correct.
His voice synthesiser is also pretty special. Powered by an Intel® 4 core™ processor, it varies the intonation, and doesn’t make him sound like a Dalek. But, as Stephen says himself, the only trouble is that it gives him an American accent. This accent that we’ve grown to associate with Stephen may soon become extinct though, since only two other processors in the entire world can create the same style of voice. It’s almost like an old school ringtone that’s gone out of fashion. Here’s hoping his technical assistant has some luck in creating a new processor with the same accent – something he is feverishly working on!
His wit and humour make Stephen what he is. Undeniably he is a genius, but his personality and ability to have a laugh and a joke, just make him a fantastic human being.
When we asked if we could add him on Facebook, he replied “Of course”. What a guy! I wonder if he’ll check out the Catalysis page…