What do you think most about during the day?
Women. They are a complete mystery.
That was the answer Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, gave in a recent interview.
Let’s be honest, nobody knows if he’s really doing anything. You and I haven’t read his books and his language is shrouded in scientific mumbo jumbo. He’s a professor at the University of Cambridge, has British sensibilities, and has attained a cyborg state due to his degenerative muscle condition by speaking through a computer with a twitch of his cheek, like a real life comic book character.
I first became suspicious of Hawking while reading an article from a few years back titled “Intel Hopes To Boost Stephen Hawking’s Speech To Ten Words Per Minute.” The article went on to mention this tidbit:
“With his condition deteriorating, Hawking can only achieve about a word a minute.”
I started wondering how he could actually write books at this limited pace without generous help. In 2001, Hawking wrote a book called The Universe in a Nutshell. It contains roughly 61,600 words. If Hawking was speaking one word per minute at the time, it would have taken him 1,026 hours to write. That’s 85 days, working 12 hours a day 7 days a week non-stop while presumably holding down a full time job. That’s not very realistic. Let’s assume he worked 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. That would put him at 128 days or over four months of work.
That’s assuming he wrote it straight through, without stopping, and doesn’t include time for revisions, edits, or breaks to think about what he was writing. Hawking is no doubt a very intelligent guy, but intelligent enough to dictate a 60,000 word manuscript straight through, word for word, without missing a beat?
The standard rule of thumb is that it takes six months to a year to write a book. J.K. Rowling says it took her five years to write her first one. For others the time frame is much shorter, but four months would be especially fast. These are people who typically can type about 50-70 words per minute. Not one.
This book also came out during a time when Hawking was increasingly making television appearances and doing advertisements for various banks and an eyeglass company.
And not to mention, Hawking isn’t an angel. He cheated on both his wives with his nurses and stole his second wife from the guy who designed his voice box. Would it be beyond him to dabble in ghost writers?
I’m not a theoretical physicist nor am I well versed in string theory, but I don’t think the numbers add up.
Your move Hawking.