Hardly. From midmorning until he departs for dinner around 7 p. m., Hawking follows a routine that would tax the most able-bodied, working in his book-lined office, amid photographs of his wife Jane and their three children. When he rolled into the department's common room one morning last month, his students were talking shop around low tables. Maneuvering to one of the tables, Hawking clicked his control switch, evoking tiny beeps from his computer and selecting words from lists displayed on his screen. These words, assembled in sequence at the bottom of the screen, finally issued from the voice synthesizer: "Good morning. Can I have coffee?" Then, for the benefit of a visitor: "I am sorry about my American accent."(The synthesizer is produced by a California company.)
没那回事儿。从上午九点到下午七点左右回家吃饭，霍金一直都在四壁排满书、面前摆着夫人简和三个孩子照片的办公室里工作，每日的工作量之大足以使身体最强壮的人也感到劳累不堪。上个月的某天上午，当他坐着轮椅来到系的师生公共休息室时，他的研究生正围着矮桌子在三句不离本行地交谈着。霍金熟练地操纵着轮椅来到一张桌子旁边，咔哒一声按了按控制开关，计算机便发出轻微的嘟嘟声。他从显示在屏幕上的词表中选出了几个单词，这些单词在屏幕下方按顺序排列好以后，终于从声音合成器中放了出来：“早上好。我可以来杯咖啡吗?”接着，为了在座的一位来访者，他又特意加了一句：“对不起，我的发音带有美国腔。”（他用的声音合成器是美国加州的一家公司制造的。）
When the conversation shifted to creativity and how mathematicians seem to reach a creative peak in their early 20s, Hawking's computer beeped. "I'm over the hill," he said, to a chorus of laughter.
当话题转到创造力以及数学家似乎在二十几岁就达到一个创造力的高峰时，霍金的计算机发出了嘟嘟声。他说：“我已经在走下坡路了。”一句话引得众人哈哈大笑。
Hawking was born on Jan. 8, 1942-300 years to the day, he often notes, after the death ofGalileo. As a small boy, he was slow to learn to read but liked to take things apart though he confesses that he was never very good at putting things back together. When he wastwelve, he recalls humorously, "one of my friends bet another friend a bag of sweets that Iwould never come to anything. I don't know if this bet was ever settled and, if so, who won."
霍金生于1942年1月8日，这一天——他常常提到——正好是伽利略逝世三百周年纪念日。小时候，他学习阅读很迟钝，但他喜欢把东西拆开，不过他承认自己从来不善于把拆开的东西再照原样装好。他幽默地回忆说，十二岁的时候，“我的一个朋友以一袋糖果跟另一个朋友打赌，说我永远不会有什么作为。我不知道这次打赌是不是已经了结，如果已经了结，也不知道是谁打赢了。”
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