Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair and voice to be preserved forever

The famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking passed away but his customized hi-tech wheelchair will live on forever as his memory, as it is now open to offers from museums.

Hawking was suffering from the motor-neurone disease ALS that took his life at the age of 76 on March 14. The disease made him completely paralyzed giving him inability to move or speak. However, a wheelchair was personalized for him that is now under considerations to keep the chair and his voice preserved for life.

The Sunday Times reported that Hawking’s family hopes that his signature wheelchair and voice system can preserve his memory for eternity and are thus, open to offers from museums. One of the ideas being considered is for the Science Museum in London to honor the scientist’s life through an exhibition containing one of the two wheelchairs along with his lecture recordings.

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Computer engineers spent four years to rebuild the 33-year-old synthesizer, which generated Hawking’s robotic tones after it was in danger of failing. Peter Benie, the co-leader of the project expressed, “We fixed the new system to his wheelchair on January 26. It was the same voice but much clearer. He was using it to talk with his family but he died before it could be heard in public. I would be happy to hear it used to repeat his lectures.”

The wheelchair was made in Sweden that had technology incorporated from across the world. Its Lenovo computer used an American-made infrared sensor on his glasses that read his cheek movements. His voice was developed by a US scientist Dennis Klatt, who based Hawking’s voice on his own speech. The voice system called ‘CallText 5010’ impressed Hawking so much that he bought three of them, wrote DNA India.