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Extremely Rare Footage Shows Stephen Hawking Speaking in His Real Voice

Footage of the late physicist talking without a synthesizer in a television interview from the late 1970s has gone viral online.

BY RIMA BISWAS

PUBLISHED MAY 7, 2024

Cover Image Source: Cosmologist Stephen Hawking on October 10, 1979 in Princeton, New Jersey. (Photo by Santi Visalli/Getty Images)

Stephen Hawking will forever be known for his contribution to the fields of theoretical physics and cosmology. Despite battling an incurable ailment for decades, he lived a remarkable life before passing away at the age of 76 in 2018. While most people might remember Hawking's robotic synthesized voice, a clip has resurfaced from the past, in which his real voice can be heard along with that of a translator to help the audience understand him better.

Image Source: PRINCETON, NJ - OCTOBER 10: Cosmologist Stephen Hawking on October 10, 1979 in Princeton, New Jersey. (Photo by Santi Visalli/Getty Images)

The 1 minute 35 seconds long footage posted by the YouTube page of Horowitz Scores, captures Hawking taking help from one of his students to form full sentences. The footage was captured during an old televised interview where Hawking was speaking about black hole theories without the help of his voice synthesizer. "You wouldn't see anything special if you pass inside the black hole," he can be heard saying as his student promptly translates his words for those present. "Once you pass a certain critical point, then you will never be able to get out, ever."

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He adds, "we all came out of singularity at the beginning of the universe and it would not be that unnatural if we ended up in another singularity." A second footage shows Hawking speaking about the Big Bang phenomenon. He says, "The big bang is like a black hole explosion and they become the monsters of the universe," as a man translates his words off camera.

Image Source: CAMBRIDGE, CAMBRIDGESHIRE - NOVEMBER 21: Professor Stephen Hawking addressing The Cambridge Union on November 21, 2017 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. (Photo by Chris Williamson/Getty Images)

According to Washington Education, Hawking graduated at age 21 but soon after that, he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). The degeneration of motor neurons in his brain interfered with the messages it sent to muscles in the body, and that eventually led to muscle atrophy and speech impairment. He used the help of assistive technology to compensate for mobility and speech difficulties. Hawking had a thumb switch and a blink switch attached to his glasses to control his computer which he used for composing speeches, surfing the Internet, sending e-mail, and speaking through a voice synthesizer.

Image Source: Professor Stephen Hawking (L) and his wife Elaine Mason attend the international bookfair on October 19, 2005 in Frankfurt, Germany. South Korea is the guest of honour at the 57th annual Frankfurt Book Fair (Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images)

His speech-generating device was called SGD, a voice-output communication aid to help him communicate. Since 1997, Hawking has been using a computer-based communication system made by Intel Corporation. Intel has also released Hawking’s speech system called Assistive Context-Aware Toolkit as open-source code for the general public, to help people with a wider range of communicative disabilities, per Science ABC.

Image Source: (Original Caption) Stephen Hawking in India, promoting his book 'A Brief History of Time' for publication. (Photo by Pallava Bagla/Corbis via Getty Images)

The footage was also shared in the Reddit community by u/JohnAdams4621 where it received heartfelt reactions from the viewers. u/Mundane-Fudge-8243 wrote, "Despite his HORRIBLE condition, dude still managed to contribute more to humanity than 99.99 percent of its population ever has. The pinnacle of human intellect and sheer drive." u/Due_Theory_2975 commented, "The smartest people who have advanced the world often have the worst stuff happening to them. It’s a gift and a curse to be intelligent it seems." u/deleted added, "This video made me wonder what if Stephen never had this disease and his brain and body worked optimally together, I wonder what kind of feats or discoveries would this man of achieved."