Brief Answers to the Big Questions

Eddie Redmayne, who portrays Stephen Hawking in the film biography The Theory of Everything, authored the book’s Foreword. Redmayne describes how he studied the scientist’s life and work in order to accurately depict Hawking’s character, including how he approached his work and how he dealt with the motor neuron disease that slowly claimed his body. When Redmayne met Hawking, he was struck by the man’s determination, his great sense of humor, and his ability to hold people “in the palm of his hand” (x).

When Hawking viewed the film, he said he enjoyed it but wished it had focused less on his emotional life and more on the physics. When Hawking died, Redmayne delivered a eulogy at the funeral, saying, “We have lost a truly beautiful mind, an astonishing scientist and the funniest man I have ever had the pleasure to meet” (xi).

Physicist Kip Thorne authored an Introduction for the book. Thorne met Hawking in 1965 at a conference in London. Hawking was completing his PhD, and Thorne had recently finished his own. After Hawking presented his groundbreaking theory on the age of the universe, Thorne sought him out, and they began a “lifelong friendship.