SteamyTea Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 Forgot this until I heard it on the News. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 Yes, very funny and very sad he has gone, great loss to science and UK scientific power. One thing though, his estate will be able to use his voice to say anything they like unless he made specific arrangements (I expect he did) for it to be deleted with him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epsilonGreedy Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 7 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said: Yes, very funny and very sad he has gone, great loss to science and UK scientific power. One thing though, his estate will be able to use his voice to say anything they like unless he made specific arrangements (I expect he did) for it to be deleted with him. An interesting point because he was to be featured in a remake of the Hitchhikers Guide. I thought Intel provided his voice using the best available technology 30 years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 I heard that when his original voice synthesiser broke “ they” wanted to give him a modern one which was more like a “ real” voice but he refused, saying people knew his voice and he didn’t want to change it, it was him. So “ they” had to make a new one imatating the old one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney12 Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 If you've not watched the film of his life then you must! It's exceptional. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 24 minutes ago, joe90 said: I heard that when his original voice synthesiser broke “ they” wanted to give him a modern one which was more like a “ real” voice but he refused, saying people knew his voice and he didn’t want to change it, it was him. So “ they” had to make a new one imatating the old one. For some reason you've just made me think of the voice packs on the old TomTom sat navs, Basil Fawlty etc. He was probably worried that with a more modern system, someone would swap the settings to Joe Pasquale for a gag... Tremendous man, although I still struggle to understand much of what he discovered and even with two engineering degrees only got to chapter two of Brief History Of Time before giving up. Even the second half of this obit had me struggling - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/14/stephen-hawking-obituary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted March 14, 2018 Author Share Posted March 14, 2018 Tempted to reread it. Read it when it came out and it did not seem that complicated. But since then I have got a better science education, so may have to shift entrenched ideas. One of the few books that has moved with me over the last 32 years and 4 houses. Wonder if it is possible to copyright a voice. Don't look like it. http://www.iflscience.com/technology/you-can-now-download-stephen-hawkings-voice-software-free/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 Well worth having another read of "A brief history of time". He's one person I would have really liked to meet. He also did a few cameo appearances that were brilliant, from appearing as as the voice of the book in the current new series of the "Hitch-hikers guide to the Galaxy" to the brilliant scene with him, Newton, Einstein and Data in star trek: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney12 Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 By far his greatest cameo was providing the voice to Pink Floyds , Keep Talking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hecateh Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 I suspect a 'similar' voice will be used for many things once 'a(n in)decent' time has elapsed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hecateh Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 30 minutes ago, Onoff said: Love how, even religious leaders are singing his praises despite hin saying "that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epsilonGreedy Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 12 hours ago, Hecateh said: Love how, even religious leaders are singing his praises despite hin saying "that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.” ... I gave up reading A Brief History of Time because I found the anti religious sniping a little puerile and a disappointment coming from such a great mind. Even though I hold no religious beliefs I do comprehend a smidgen about the enduring function of religion over the past 10,000 years of human history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryE Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 Hawkins was an atheist who was publicly open about this, but for the large part only commented on this in a personal context. Of far more importance was that he was also a great scientist and thinker who achieved this greatness despite personal tragedy and disability that would crush the vast majority of us. He left the world a better place after his passing and caused no material harm to others in doing so. If I could achieve 10% of that, then I would die happy. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curlewhouse Posted March 17, 2018 Share Posted March 17, 2018 Had to re-read A Brief History of Time immediately after the first read to get a grip on it (well, I think I did, sort of! ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted March 17, 2018 Author Share Posted March 17, 2018 Some one was chatting to Robin Ince about science today. He said that you have to read science at a different pace. Good observation, it is not really like a story book. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TerryE Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 I remember an old friend of mine -- who died 6 days before his big 90th birthday bash -- asking my what was the point of quantum mechanics. He'd read a number of introductions to it and just couldn't understand what it was all about. My answer to him was that it was less important that he understood it. The main point was did he use computers, mobile phones. the telephone, modern drugs, modern fabrics and materials, ... None of these would have been possible if the people developing them had been limited to classical physics; the relatively small numbers of scientists and engineers who are transforming our society and the quality of everyone's lives need to understand this stuff to do the magic that they do. I realise that Hawkins attempted to popularise what he is doing, but the important thing here is not that 10% of the population understands or remotely comprehends this, but that the tiny percentage of people who need to do understand. The domain where Hawkins worked is at the boundary where general relatively meets quantum mechanics --two theories that explain the physics of our universe to exquisite precision, yet are mutually inconsistent. Maybe we don't need to understand all this, but also perhaps the scientists and engineers that will build a workable fusion energy source that will transform the plight of humanity going into the 22nd century do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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