Justgeorge wrote:
crowny2 wrote:
I was fortunate not only to have met him but carried on a 30-40 minute conversation with him, specifically about dinosaurs. Superbowl Sunday 1998. A day I will never forget.
It will be a while before we have another mind like his on this planet.
I would love to hear more about that story
Wife works at a natural history museum and I can in to help out. We were just getting ready to pack up around 3 and go to a SB part when she gets a call on the radio saying “Stephen Hawking and the museum president are in the dinosaur hall and he has some questions”.
Our eyes go wide and she knows there are no scientists on duty on a Sunday but she knows I’m a Dino fan and a bio major (did some chordate anatomy and evolution classes heavy on dinosaurs) so I get nominated. We grab another guy doing some laboratory prep work on a fossil who is a geology expert (and covered in dust) and we head back.
We get there and he already has a question tee’d up on the computer. Me and the other guy answered based on our knowledge for up to 30-40 minutes. At one point we noticed that as we were answering, he was already building the next question. So while one was answering the other would go behind to get an idea is what it was. Sped up the process a ton.
All in all he asked tons of great questions, many science still doesn’t have a solid answer for. It still is the highlight of this scientists life.
Funny side story, when we finished and were walking him to the front of the exhibit, his nephew/cousin who was with him was standing off to the side looking at something. Hawking purposefully drove over his foot with his heavy chair and actually laughed. It was hilarious.