title: Qatar

text: The Qatari peninsula protrudes into the Persian Gulf, north of Saudi Arabia. It lies between latitudes 24° and 27° N, and longitudes 50° and 52° E. Most of the country consists of a low, barren plain, covered with sand. To the southeast lies the Khor al Adaid ("Inland Sea"), an area of rolling sand dunes surrounding an inlet of the Persian Gulf. There are mild winters and very hot, humid summers.


title: Qatar

text: The highest point in Qatar is Qurayn Abu al Bawl at in the Jebel Dukhan to the west, a range of low limestone outcroppings running north-south from Zikrit through Umm Bab to the southern border. The Jebel Dukhan area also contains Qatar's main onshore oil deposits, while the natural gas fields lie offshore, to the northwest of the peninsula.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar signed the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity on 11 June 1992, and became a party to the convention on 21 August 1996. It has subsequently produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which was received by the convention on 18 May 2005. A total of 142 fungal species have been recorded from Qatar. A book recently produced by the Ministry of Environment documents the lizards known or believed to occur in Qatar, based on surveys conducted by an international team of scientists and other collaborators.


title: Qatar

text: Before the discovery of oil, the economy of the Qatari region focused on fishing and pearl hunting. A report prepared by local governors of Ottoman Empire in 1892 states that total income from pearl hunting in 1892 is 2,450,000 kran. After the introduction of the Japanese cultured pearl onto the world market in the 1920s and 1930s, Qatar's pearling industry crashed. Oil was discovered in Qatar in 1940, in Dukhan Field. The discovery transformed the state's economy. Now, the country has a high standard of living for its legal citizens. With no income tax, Qatar (along with Bahrain) is one of the countries with the lowest tax rates in the world. The unemployment rate in June 2013 was 0.1%. Corporate law mandates that Qatari nationals must hold 51% of any venture in the emirate. Trade and industry in the emirate is overseen by the Ministry of Business and Trade.


title: Qatar

text: , Qatar has the fourth highest GDP per capita in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund. It relies heavily on foreign labor to grow its economy, to the extent that migrant workers compose 86% of the population and 94% of the workforce. Qatar has been criticized by the International Trade Union Confederation. The economic growth of Qatar has been almost exclusively based on its petroleum and natural gas industries, which began in 1940. Qatar is the leading exporter of liquefied natural gas. In 2012, it was estimated that Qatar would invest over $120 billion in the energy sector in the next 10 years. The country was a member state of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), having joined in 1961, and having left in January 2019.


title: Qatar

text: In 2012, Qatar retained its title of richest country in the world (according to per capita income) for the third time in a row, having first overtaken Luxembourg in 2010. According to the study published by the Washington-based Institute of International Finance, Qatar's per capita GDP at purchasing power parity (PPP) was $106,000 (QR387,000) in 2012, helping the country retain its ranking as the world's wealthiest nation. Luxembourg came a distant second with nearly $80,000 and Singapore third with per capita income of about $61,000. The research put Qatar's GDP at $182bn in 2012 and said it had climbed to an all-time high due to soaring gas exports and high oil prices. Its population stood at 1.8 million in 2012. The same study published that Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), with assets of $115bn, was ranked 12th among the richest sovereign wealth funds in the world.


title: Qatar

text: Established in 2005, Qatar Investment Authority is the country's sovereign wealth fund, specializing in foreign investment. Due to billions of dollars in surpluses from the oil and gas industry, the Qatari government has directed investments into United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific. , the holdings were valued at $100 billion in assets. Qatar Holding is the international investment arm of QIA. Since 2009, Qatar Holding has received $30–40bn a year from the state. , it has investments around the world in Valentino, Siemens, Printemps, Harrods, The Shard, Barclays Bank, Heathrow Airport, Paris Saint-Germain F.C., Volkswagen Group, Royal Dutch Shell, Bank of America, Tiffany, Agricultural Bank of China, Sainsbury's, BlackBerry, and Santander Brasil.


title: Qatar

text: The country has no taxes on non-companies, but authorities have announced plans to levy taxes on junk food and luxury items. The taxes would be implemented on goods that harm the human body – for example, fast food, tobacco products, and soft drinks. The rollout of these initial taxes is believed to be due to the fall in oil prices and a deficit that the country faced in 2016. Additionally, the country saw job cuts in 2016 from its petroleum companies and other sectors in the government.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar is one of the fastest growing countries in the field of tourism. According to the World Tourism rankings, more than 2.3 million international tourists visited Qatar in 2017. Qatar has become one of the most open countries in the Middle East due to its recent visa facilitation improvements, including allowing nationals of 88 countries to enter visa-free and free-of charge.


title: Qatar

text: , Qatar has proven oil reserves of 15 billion barrels and gas fields that account for more than 13% of the global resource. As a result, it is the richest state per-capita in the world. None of its 2 million residents live below the poverty line and less than 1% are unemployed.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar's economy was in a downturn from 1982 to 1989. OPEC quotas on crude oil production, the lower price for oil, and the generally unpromising outlook on international markets reduced oil earnings. In turn, the Qatari government's spending plans had to be cut to match lower income. The resulting recessionary local business climate caused many firms to lay off expatriate staff. With the economy recovering in the 1990s, expatriate populations, particularly from Egypt and South Asia, have grown again.


title: Qatar

text: Oil production will not remain at the peak level of 500,000 barrels (80,000 m) per day for long as the national oil fields are projected to be largely depleted by 2023. Large natural gas reserves have, however, been located off Qatar's northeast coast. Qatar's proved reserves of gas are the third-largest in the world, exceeding 250 trillion cubic feet (7,000 km). The economy was boosted in 1991 by completion of the $1.5-billion Phase I of North Field gas development. In 1996, the Qatargas project began exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Japan. Further phases of North Field gas development costing billions of dollars are in various stages of planning and development.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar's heavy industrial projects, all based in Umm Said, include a refinery with a 50,000 barrels (8,000 m) per day capacity, a fertiliser plant for urea and ammonia, a steel plant, and a petrochemical plant. All these industries use gas for fuel. Most are joint ventures between European and Japanese firms and the state-owned QatarEnergy. The US is the major equipment supplier for Qatar's oil and gas industry, and US companies are playing a major role in North Field gas development.


title: Qatar

text: According to the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, carbon dioxide emissions per person average over 30 tonnes, one of the highest in the world.


title: Qatar

text: In 2008 Qatar launched its National Vision 2030 which highlights environmental development as one of the four main goals for Qatar over the next two decades. The National Vision pledges to develop sustainable alternatives to oil-based energy to preserve the local and global environment.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar's National Vision 2030 has made investment in renewable resources a major goal for the country over the next two decades. Qatar pursues a vigorous programme of "Qatarisation", under which all joint venture industries and government departments strive to move Qatari nationals into positions of greater authority. Growing numbers of foreign-educated Qataris, including many educated in the US, are returning home to assume key positions formerly occupied by expatriates. To control the influx of expatriate workers, Qatar has tightened the administration of its foreign manpower programmes over the past several years. Security is the principal basis for Qatar's strict entry and immigration rules and regulations.


title: Qatar

text: With a fast-expanding population and substantial economic growth over the past decade, a reliable and extensive transportation network is becoming increasingly necessary within Qatar. So far the government, the primary transport developer, has done well in terms of keeping up with the demand for new transportation options. In 2008 the Public Works Authority (Ashghal), one of the bodies that oversees infrastructure development, underwent a major reorganisation in order to streamline and modernise the authority in preparation for major project expansions across all segments in the near future. Ashghal works in tandem with the Urban Planning and Development Authority (UPDA), the body that designed the transportation master plan, instituted in March 2006 and running to 2025.


title: Qatar

text: As driving is the primary mode of transport in Qatar, the road network is a major focus of the plan. Project highlights in this segment include the multibillion-dollar Doha Expressway and the Qatar Bahrain Causeway, which would connect Qatar to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.


title: Qatar

text: Mass-transit options, such as a Doha metro, light-rail system and more extensive bus networks, are also under development to ease road congestion. In addition, the railway system is being significantly expanded and could eventually form an integral part of a GCC-wide network linking all the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The airport, too, is expanding capacity to keep up with rising visitor numbers.


title: Qatar

text: Hamad International Airport is the international airport of Doha. In 2014, it replaced the former Doha International Airport as Qatar's principal airport. In 2016, the airport was named the 50th busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic, serving 37,283,987 passengers, a 20.2% increase from 2015.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar is increasingly activating its logistics and ports in order to participate in trade between Europe and China or Africa. For this purpose, ports such as Hamad Port are rapidly expanded and investments are made in their technology. The country is historically and currently part of the Maritime Silk Road that runs from the Chinese coast to the south via the southern tip of India to Mombasa, from there through the Red Sea via the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, there to the Upper Adriatic region to the northern Italian hub of Trieste with its rail connections to Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the North Sea. Hamad Port is Qatar's main seaport, located south of Doha in the Umm Al Houl area. Construction of the port began in 2010; it became operational in December 2016. It was officially opened in September 2017, and is expected to become fully operational by 2020. Capable of handling up to 7.8 million tonnes of products annually, the bulk of trade which passes through the port consists of food and building materials. On the northern coast, Ras Laffan Port serves as the most extensive LNG exporting facility in the world.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar Airways is one of the largest airlines in the world that serves in six continents connecting more than 160 destinations every day. It has won Airline of the Year in 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2019 and employs more than 46,000 people.


title: Qatar

text: The number of people in Qatar fluctuates considerably depending on the season, since the country relies heavily on migrant labour. In early 2017, Qatar's total population was 2.6 million, with foreigners making up a vast majority of Qatar's population. Only 313,000 of the population (12%) were Qatari citizens, while the remaining 2.3 million (88%) were expatriates.


title: Qatar

text: The combined number of South Asians (from the countries of the Indian subcontinent including Sri Lanka) by themselves represent over 1.5 million people (60%) of Qatar's population. Among these, Indians are the largest community, numbering 650,000 in 2017, followed by 350,000 Nepalis, 280,000 Bangladeshis, 145,000 Sri Lankans, and 125,000 Pakistanis. The contingent of expatriates which are not of South Asian origin represent around 28% of Qatar's population, of which the largest group is 260,000 Filipinos and 200,000 Egyptians, plus many other nationalities (including nationals of other Arab countries, Europeans, etc.).


title: Qatar

text: Qatar's first demographic records date back to 1892, and were conducted by Ottoman governors in the region. Based on this census, which includes only the residents in cities, the total population in 1892 was 9,830.


title: Qatar

text: The 2010 census recorded the total population at 1,699,435. In January 2013, the Qatar Statistics Authority estimated the country's population at 1,903,447, of which 1,405,164 were males and 498,283 females. At the time of the first census, held in 1970, the population was 111,133. The population has tripled in the decade to 2011, up from just over 600,000 people in 2001, leaving Qatari nationals as less than 15% of the total population. The influx of male labourers has skewed the gender balance, and women are now just one-quarter of the population.


title: Qatar

text: Projections released by the Qatar Statistical Authority indicate that the total population of Qatar could reach 2.8 million by 2020. Qatar's National Development Strategy (2011–16) had estimated that the country's population would reach 1.78m in 2013, 1.81m in 2014, 1.84m in 2015 and 1.86m in 2016 – the yearly growth rate being merely 2.1%. But the country's population has soared to 1.83 million by the end of 2012, showing 7.5% growth over the previous year. Qatar's total population hit a record high of 2.46 million in November 2015, an increase of 8.5% from the previous year, far exceeding official projections.


title: Qatar

text: Islam is Qatar's predominant religion and is the state religion although not the only religion practiced in the country and the constitution guarantees freedom to practise any faith within "moral" bounds. Most Qatari citizens belong to the Salafi Muslim movement of Wahhabism, and 5–15% of Muslims in Qatar follow Shia Islam with other Islamic sects being very small in number. In 2010, Qatar's population was 67.7% Muslim, 13.8% Christian, 13.8% Hindu, and 3.1% Buddhist; other religions and religiously unaffiliated people accounted for the remaining 1.6%.


title: Qatar

text: Sharia law is the main source of Qatari legislation according to Qatar's Constitution. Qatar's interpretation of Sharia law is said to be not as "strict" as neighboring Saudi Arabia but neither as "liberal" as Dubai. The vision of the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs (Qatar) is "to build a contemporary Islamic society along with fostering the Sharee’ah and cultural heritage".


title: Qatar

text: The non-Muslim population is composed almost entirely of foreigners. Since 2008, Christians have been allowed to build churches on ground donated by the government, though foreign missionary activity is officially discouraged. Active churches include the Mar Thoma Church, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Rosary and the Anglican Church of the Epiphany. There are also two Mormon wards.


title: Qatar

text: Arabic is the official language of Qatar, with Qatari Arabic the local dialect. Qatari Sign Language is the language of the deaf community. English is commonly used as a second language, and a rising lingua franca, especially in commerce, to the extent that steps are being taken to try to preserve Arabic from English's encroachment. English is particularly useful for communication with Qatar's large expatriate community. In the medical community, and in situations such as the training of nurses to work in Qatar, English acts as a lingua franca. Reflecting the multicultural make-up of the country, many other languages are also spoken, including Persian, Baluchi, Brahui, Hindi, Malayalam, Urdu, Pashto, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Nepali, Sinhalese, Bengali, Tagalog, Tulu and Indonesian.


title: Qatar

text: In 2012, Qatar joined the international French-speaking organisation of La Francophonie (OIF) as a new associate member, but in December 2013, the French daily "Le Monde" revealed that Qatar, which has very few native French speakers, had not yet paid any contribution to the OIF, while the outgoing Administrator of the OIF complained in 2015 that Qatar had not kept any of the promises it made when it joined the organisation and had never paid its annual membership fees.


title: Qatar

text: Healthcare standards in Qatar are generally high. Qatari citizens are covered by a national health-insurance plan, while expatriates must either receive health insurance from their employers, or in the case of the self-employed, purchase insurance. Qatar's healthcare spending is among the highest in the Middle East, with $4.7 billion being invested in healthcare in 2014. This was a $2.1 billion increase from 2010. The premier healthcare provider in the country is the Hamad Medical Corporation, established by the government as a non-profit healthcare provider, which runs a network of hospitals, an ambulance services, and a home healthcare service, all of which are accredited by the Joint Commission.


title: Qatar

text: In 2010, spending on healthcare accounted for 2.2% of the country's GDP; the highest in the Middle East. In 2006, there were 23.12 physicians and 61.81 nurses per 10,000 inhabitants. The life expectancy at birth was 82.08 years in 2014, or 83.27 years for males and 77.95 years for females, rendering it the highest life expectancy in the Middle East. Qatar has a low infant mortality rate of 7 in 100,000.


title: Qatar

text: In 2006, there were a total of 25 beds per 10,000 people, and 27.6 doctors and 73.8 nurses per 10,000 people. In 2011, the number of beds decreased to 12 per 10,000 people, whereas the number of doctors increased to 28 per 10,000 people. While the country has one of the lowest proportions of hospital beds in the region, the availability of physicians is the highest in the GCC.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar's culture is similar to other countries in Eastern Arabia, being significantly influenced by Islam. Qatar National Day, hosted annually on 18 December, has had an important role in developing a sense of national identity. It is observed in remembrance of Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani's succession to the throne and his subsequent unification of the country's various tribes.


title: Qatar

text: The Doha Cultural Festival is one of the cultural activities carried out annually by the Qatari Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage, which began in 2002 with the aim of spreading Qatari culture inside and outside Qatar.


title: Qatar

text: Several senior members of Qatar's ruling Al Thani family are noted collectors of Islamic and contemporary art.


title: Qatar

text: The Museum of Islamic Art, opened in 2008, is regarded as one of the best museums in the region. This, and several other Qatari museums, like the , falls under the Qatar Museums Authority ("QMA") which is led by Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the sister of the ruling Emir of the State of Qatar, and the prominent collector and art patron Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed Al Thani. The QMA also sponsors artistic events abroad, such as major exhibitions by Takahashi Murakami in Versailles (2010) and Damien Hirst in London (2012).


title: Qatar

text: Qatar is the world's biggest buyer in the art market by value. The Qatari cultural sector is being developed to enable the country to reach world recognition to contribute to the development of a country that comes mainly from its resources from the gas industry.


title: Qatar

text: Qatari literature traces its origins back to the 19th century. Originally, written poetry was the most common form of expression. Abdul Jalil Al-Tabatabai and Mohammed bin Abdullah bin Uthaymeen, two poets dating back to the early 19th century, formed the corpus of Qatar's earliest written poetry. Poetry later fell out of favor after Qatar began reaping the profits from oil exports in the mid-20th century and many Qataris abandoned their Bedouin traditions in favor of more urban lifestyles.


title: Qatar

text: Due to the increasing number of Qataris who began receiving formal education during the 1950s and other significant societal changes, 1970 witnessed the introduction of the first short story anthology, and in 1993 the first locally authored novels were published. Poetry, particularly the predominant nabati form, retained some importance but would soon be overshadowed by other literary types. Unlike most other forms of art in Qatari society, females have been involved in the modern literature movement on a similar magnitude to males.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar's media was classified as "not free" in the 2014 Freedom of the Press report by Freedom House. TV broadcasting in Qatar was started in 1970. Al Jazeera is a main television network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. Al Jazeera initially launched in 1996 as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel of the same name, but has since expanded into a global network of several speciality TV channels known collectively as the Al Jazeera Media Network.


title: Qatar

text: It has been reported that journalists practice self-censorship, particularly in regards to the government and ruling family of Qatar. Criticism of the government, Emir and ruling family in the media is illegal. According to article 46 of the press law "The Emir of the state of Qatar shall not be criticised and no statement can be attributed to him unless under a written permission from the manager of his office." Journalists are also subject to prosecution for insulting Islam.


title: Qatar

text: In 2014, a Cybercrime Prevention Law was passed. The law is said to restrict press freedom and carries prison sentences and fines for broad reasons such as jeopardising local peace or publishing false news. The Gulf Center for Human Rights has stated that the law is a threat to freedom of speech and has called for certain articles of the law to be revoked.


title: Qatar

text: Press media has undergone expansion in recent years. There are currently seven newspapers in circulation in Qatar, with four being published in Arabic and three being published in English. There are also newspapers from India, Nepal and Sri Lanka with editions printed from Qatar.


title: Qatar

text: In regards to telecommunication infrastructure, Qatar is the highest-ranked Middle Eastern country in the World Economic Forum's Network Readiness Index (NRI) – an indicator for determining the development level of a country's information and communication technologies. Qatar ranked number 23 overall in the 2014 NRI ranking, unchanged from 2013.


title: Qatar

text: The music of Qatar is based on Bedouin poetry, song and dance. Traditional dances in Doha are performed on Friday afternoons; one such dance is the Ardah, a stylised martial dance performed by two rows of dancers who are accompanied by an array of percussion instruments, including al-ras (a large drum whose leather is heated by an open fire), tambourines and cymbals with small drums. Other percussion instruments used in folk music include "galahs" (a tall clay jar) and tin drinking cups known as "tus" or "tasat", usually used in conjunction with a "tabl", a longitudinal drum beaten with a stick. String instruments, such as the oud and rebaba, are also commonly used.


title: Qatar

text: Association football is the most popular sport in Qatar, both in terms of players and spectators. Shortly after the Qatar Football Association became affiliated with FIFA in 1970, one of the country's earliest international accolades came in 1981 when the Qatar national under-20 team's emerged as runners-up to West Germany in that year's edition of the FIFA World Youth Championship after being defeated 4–0 in the final. At the senior level, Qatar has played host to two editions of the AFC Asian Cup; the first coming being the 9th edition in 1988 and the second being the 15th edition held in 2011. For the first time in the country's history, the Qatar national football team won the AFC Asian Cup in the 2019 edition hosted in the UAE, beating Japan 3–1 in the final. They won all seven of their matches, conceding only a single goal throughout the tournament.


title: Qatar

text: On 2 December 2010, Qatar won their bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, despite never previously qualifying for the FIFA World Cup Finals. Local organisers built 7 new stadiums and expanded 1 existing stadium for this event. Qatar's winning bid for the 2022 World Cup was greeted enthusiastically in the Persian Gulf region as it was the first time a country in the Middle East had been selected to host the tournament. At the same time, the bid has been embroiled in much controversy, including allegations of bribery and interference in the investigation of the alleged bribery. European football associations have also objected to the 2022 World Cup being held in Qatar for a variety of reasons, from the impact of warm temperatures on players' fitness, to the disruption it might cause in European domestic league calendars should the event be rescheduled to take place during winter. In May 2014, Qatari football official Mohammed bin Hammam was accused of making payments totalling £3m to officials in return for their support for the Qatar bid. A FIFA inquiry into the bidding process in November 2014 cleared Qatar of any wrongdoing.


title: Qatar

text: "The Guardian", a British national daily newspaper, produced a short documentary named "Abuse and exploitation of migrant workers preparing emirate for 2022". A 2014 investigation by "The Guardian" reports that migrant workers who have been constructing luxurious offices for the organisers of the 2022 World Cup have not been paid in over a year, and are now "working illegally from cockroach-infested lodgings." For 2014, Nepalese migrants involved in constructing infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup died at a rate of one every two days. The Qatar 2022 organising committee have responded to various allegations by claiming that hosting the World Cup in Qatar would act as a "catalyst for change" in the region. According to a February 2021 article in "The Guardian", some 6,500 migrant construction workers have died.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar was estimated to host a football fanbase of 1.6 million for the 2022 FIFA World Cup 2022. However, the construction work in country was expected to only take the available 37,000 hotel rooms to 70,000 by the end of 2021. In December 2019, the Qatari World Cup officials approached the organizers of the Glastonbury Festival in England and the Coachella Festival in the US, to plan huge desert campsites for thousands of football fans. The World Cup campsites on the outskirts were reported to have licensed bars, restaurants, entertainment and washing facilities. Moreover, two cruise ships were also reserved as temporary floating accommodations for nearly 40,000 people during the tournament.


title: Qatar

text: Though football is the most popular sport, other team sports have experienced considerable success at senior level. In 2015, the national handball team emerged as runners-up to France in the World Men's Handball Championship as hosts, however the tournament was marred by numerous controversies regarding the host nation and its team. Further, in 2014, Qatar won the world championship in men's 3x3 basketball.


title: Qatar

text: Cricket is popular amongst the South Asian diaspora in Qatar. Casual street cricket is the most popular format of the game, but the Qatar Cricket Association has been a member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) since 1999 and the men's and women's national teams both play regularly in ICC competitions. The primary cricket ground in Qatar is the West End Park International Cricket Stadium.


title: Qatar

text: Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha hosted the WTA Tour Championships in women's tennis between 2008 and 2010. Doha holds the WTA Premier tournament Qatar Ladies Open annually. Since 2002, Qatar has hosted the annual Tour of Qatar, a cycling race in six stages. Every February, riders are racing on the roads across Qatar's flat land for six days. Each stage covers a distance of more than 100 km, though the time trial usually is a shorter distance. Tour of Qatar is organised by the Qatar Cycling Federation for professional riders in the category of Elite Men.


title: Qatar

text: The Qatar Army Skydiving Team has several different skydiving disciplines placing among the top nations in the world. The Qatar National Parachute team performs annually during Qatar's National Day and at other large events, such as the 2015 World Handball Championship.


title: Qatar

text: Doha four times was the host of the official FIVB Volleyball Men's Club World Championship and three times host FIVB Volleyball Women's Club World Championship. Doha one time Host Asian Volleyball Championship.


title: Qatar

text: Qatar hired the RAND Corporation to reform its K–12 education system. Through Qatar Foundation, the country has built Education City, a campus that hosts local branches of the Weill Cornell Medical College, Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, Texas A&M's School of Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts and other Western institutions.


title: Qatar

text: The illiteracy rate in Qatar was 3.1% for males and 4.2% for females in 2012, the lowest in the Arab-speaking world, but 86th in the world. Citizens are required to attend government-provided education from kindergarten through high school. Qatar University, founded in 1973, is the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education.


title: Qatar

text: In November 2002, emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani created The Supreme Education Council. The Council directs and controls education for all ages from the pre-school level through the university level, including the "Education for a New Era" initiative which was established to try to position Qatar as a leader in education reform. According to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, the top-ranking universities in the country are Qatar University (1,881st worldwide), Texas A&M University at Qatar (3,905th) and Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (6,855th).


title: Qatar

text: In 2009, Qatar established the Qatar Science & Technology Park in Education City to link those universities with industry. Education City is also home to a fully accredited international Baccalaureate school, Qatar Academy. In addition, two Canadian institutions, the College of the North Atlantic (headquarters in Newfoundland and Labrador) and the University of Calgary, have inaugurated campuses in Doha. Other for-profit universities have also established campuses in the city.


title: Qatar

text: In 2012, Qatar was ranked third from the bottom of the 65 OECD countries participating in the PISA test of maths, reading and skills for 15- and 16-year-olds, comparable to Colombia or Albania, despite having the highest per capita income in the world. Qatar was ranked 48th in the Global Innovation Index in 2021, down from 65th in 2019.


title: Qatar

text: As part of its national development strategy, Qatar has outlined a 10-year strategic plan to improve the level of education. The government has launched educational outreach programs, such as Al-Bairaq. Al-Bairaq was launched in 2010 aims to provide high school students with an opportunity to experience a research environment in the Center for Advanced Materials in Qatar University. The program encompasses the STEM fields and languages.


title: Qatar

text: Launched in 2006 as part of an initiative of the quasi-governmental Qatar Foundation, the Qatar National Research Fund was created with the intent of securing public funds for scientific research within the country. The fund functions as a means for Qatar to diversify its economy from a primarily oil and gas-based one to a knowledge-based economy.


title: Qatar

text: The Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP) was established by Qatar Foundation in March 2009 as an attempt to assist the country's transition towards a knowledge economy. With a seed capital of $800 million and initially hosting 21 organizations, the QSTP became Qatar's first free-trade zone.


title: Henry Cavill

text: Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill ( ; born 5 May 1983) is a British actor. He is known for his portrayal of Charles Brandon in Showtime's "The Tudors" (2007–2010), DC Comics character Superman in the DC Extended Universe (2013–2022), Geralt of Rivia in the Netflix fantasy series "The Witcher" (2019–2023), and Sherlock Holmes in the Netflix film "Enola Holmes" (2020) and its 2022 sequel.


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill began his career with roles in the feature adaptations of "The Count of Monte Cristo" (2002) and "I Capture the Castle" (2003). He later portrayed supporting roles in several television series, including BBC's "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries", ITV's "Midsomer Murders", and Showtime's "The Tudors". He has since appeared in other films, such as "Tristan & Isolde" (2006), "Stardust" (2007), and "Immortals" (2011). Following his international breakthrough as Superman, he has starred in the spy films "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (2015) and "" (2018).


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill was born on 5 May 1983, the fourth of five boys in a Roman Catholic family in Saint Helier, Jersey, in the Channel Islands. His mother, Marianne Dalgliesh, was a secretary in a bank. She was born in Jersey and is of Scottish, English and Irish heritage. His father, Colin Cavill, was born in Chester, England and was a stockbroker. He was educated at St Michael's Preparatory School in Saint Saviour, Jersey, before attending Stowe School in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. In 2000, while playing rugby, 16-year-old Cavill met actor Russell Crowe, who was shooting on location at Stowe for the film "Proof of Life". The actor shared some acting tips and later sent a package to his boarding school. The two actors later worked together on "Man of Steel".


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill began his film career with a role in "Laguna" (2001) and Kevin Reynolds' adaptation of "The Count of Monte Cristo" (2002). He continued with appearances in BBC's "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" (2002), the television film "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (2002), and the television series "Midsomer Murders" (2003). In 2003, he had a supporting role in "I Capture the Castle", followed by "" (2005), "Red Riding Hood" (2006) and "Tristan & Isolde" (2006). He had a minor role in Matthew Vaughn's adaptation of "Stardust" (2007).


title: Henry Cavill

text: From 2007 to 2010, Cavill had a leading role in Showtime's television series "The Tudors", as Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The series was commercially well-received and it went on to be nominated for a Golden Globe in 2007 and won an Emmy in 2008. Cavill gave the show credit for bolstering his career: "It's done the most for me to date. [...] Now that there's an audience somewhere in America that's aware of who I am, I have more sell-ability, because of The Tudors." "Entertainment Weekly" named him the "Most Dashing Duke" and praised his work on "The Tudors" for displaying "charm, depth and a killer bod".


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill had been set to play Superman in McG's 2004 film, "Superman: Flyby". McG pulled out of the project and direction was taken over by director Bryan Singer, who recast Brandon Routh as the lead in "Superman Returns". Cavill was also the cause of a write-in effort from fans to see him cast as Cedric Diggory in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (2005). The role eventually went to Robert Pattinson. Stephenie Meyer, the author of the "Twilight" series, was outspoken in favour of Cavill playing the character of Edward Cullen in the "Twilight" film, calling him her "perfect Edward". However, by the time production of the film began, Cavill was too old to play the character, and again the role went to Pattinson. Despite reports that he was a contender for Batman in "Batman Begins", Cavill confirmed that he never auditioned for, nor was offered, the role.


title: Henry Cavill

text: In 2005, Cavill was a final choice for the role of James Bond in "Casino Royale". The producers and director Martin Campbell were torn between him and Daniel Craig; reportedly Campbell supported Cavill but the producers preferred an older Bond. Craig ultimately landed the role. Fifteen years later in 2020, an artificial intelligence device chose Cavill as the optimal successor to Craig following Craig's retirement from the role following "No Time to Die".


title: Henry Cavill

text: While appearing in "The Tudors", Cavill starred in director Joel Schumacher's horror film, "Blood Creek" (2008), and had a supporting role in Woody Allen's comedy film "Whatever Works" (2009). He went on to play the lead role of Theseus in Tarsem Singh's mythological film, "Immortals", released 11 November 2011, and starred, alongside Bruce Willis, in "The Cold Light of Day" released in 2012.


title: Henry Cavill

text: On 30 January 2011, it was announced that Cavill had been cast in the role of Clark Kent / Superman in director Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel". Snyder called Cavill "the perfect choice to don the cape and S shield." Entertainment media applauded Henry Cavill on his road to success. On being chosen for the role, Cavill commented, "In the pantheon of superheroes, Superman is the most recognized and revered character of all time, and I am honoured to be a part of his return to the big screen." Cavill reprised the role of Superman in "", a 2016 sequel which featured a crossover with Batman and Wonder Woman. He attended the San Diego Comic-Con in disguise to surprise the cast of "Suicide Squad".


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill returned as Superman in the 2017 theatrical version of "Justice League", which had been reworked by director Joss Whedon after Snyder left the project due to a family tragedy. He appeared again in "Zack Snyder's Justice League" which premiered on HBO Max in March 2021 after an intense fan campaign to see the Snyder cut. His manager Dany Garcia said in 2016 that he was working on a new standalone Superman film. Directors Matthew Vaughn and Christopher McQuarrie were reportedly interested. Shortly after the release of "Justice League", Cavill revealed he was under contract to play Superman in one more film.


title: Henry Cavill

text: In 2015, he co-starred with Armie Hammer in the film version of spy series "The Man from U.N.C.L.E", directed by Guy Ritchie. In 2018, Cavill co-starred as August Walker in the action spy film "", the sixth installment of the . Later that year, he starred in the psychological thriller "Night Hunter" (originally titled "Nomis"). Cavill has expressed interest in taking over the role of James Bond after Daniel Craig leaves the role.


title: Henry Cavill

text: On 4 September 2018, it was announced that Cavill would be portraying the protagonist Geralt of Rivia in the Netflix adaptation of "The Witcher". The series premiered on 20 December 2019. The series had its early premiere on Służewiec Racetrack in Warsaw on 18 December 2019.


title: Henry Cavill

text: On 27 June 2019, it was announced that Cavill would portray Sherlock Holmes in Legendary Entertainment's film adaptation of "The Enola Holmes Mysteries", with Millie Bobby Brown in the eponymous role. On 13 May 2021, it was announced that he would reprise his role in "Enola Holmes 2". On 21 May 2021, it was announced that Cavill would portray the lead role in the reboot of ""Highlander"", although his exact character is unknown. On 8 July 2021, it was reported that Cavill would join an all-star cast for director Matthew Vaughn's new spy film "Argylle". The same month, an article by "Deadline" confirmed that he would star in "The Rosie Project", directed by Steve Falk and based on the book of the same name, written by Australian author Graeme Simsion.


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill negotiated what was intended to be a one-time contract with Warner Bros. to return as Superman in "Black Adam", and appeared in a cameo in the mid-credit scene of the film. Later a sequel to "Man of Steel" was put back in development, with Cavill set to return.


title: Henry Cavill

text: He confirmed in October 2022 that he would appear in future DCEU films and referred to his mid-credits cameo as "just a very small taste of things to come". However, in December 2022 Cavill released a statement saying that his future involvement as Superman was no longer moving forward after meeting with new DC Studios executives James Gunn and Peter Safran.


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill will reteam with director Guy Ritchie on the World War II spy film "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare", with Jerry Bruckheimer producing. In late October 2022, Cavill and Netflix announced that he would exit from "The Witcher" after the third season, which would release in 2023, and will be replaced by Liam Hemsworth.


title: Henry Cavill

text: After the acquisition of global rights to the "Warhammer 40,000" franchise by Amazon Studios in December 2022, Cavill was attached to star in and executive produce projects related to it.


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill was listed as one of "GQ"s 50 best-dressed British men in 2012. In December 2013, he was named "World's Sexiest Man" by British "Glamour" magazine. The same year, "Empire" magazine placed him third on their list of "The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars 2013".


title: Henry Cavill

text: In early 2008, Cavill became the face of the British fragrance Dunhill. He appeared in two television commercials for the brand.


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill is described as British and English. He was born in the Crown Dependency of Jersey, an island in the Channel Islands. Cavill resides in South Kensington, London. He was engaged to English show jumper Ellen Whitaker from 2011 until


title: Henry Cavill

text: In 2016, Cavill started practising Brazilian jiu-jitsu, having been seen training at Roger Gracie's academy in London. Cavill supports the Jersey Rugby Club.


title: Henry Cavill

text: He has been an avid gamer since childhood, at one point missing a phone call from Zack Snyder telling him he got the role of Superman because he was too busy playing "World of Warcraft". He prefers PC gaming over consoles and has been building and maintaining his own gaming computer. He credited his experience playing "The Witcher" video game series before the show was in production as his motivation to seek out the role of Geralt. He has also named the "Total War" series of strategy games to be among his favourites, and in May 2020 it was announced that a new character paying tribute to Cavill and his "Witcher" character Geralt would be added to "" via DLC; Cavill, Loremaster of Hoeth. Cavill also enjoys the "Warhammer 40,000" series of games and fiction, saying he "genuinely can't get enough of the lore they have built over the decades".


title: Henry Cavill

text: Cavill is a spokesman for the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, and an ambassador for The Royal Marines Charity. He launched the running phase of the Royal Marines 1664 Challenge and took part in The Gibraltar Rock Run 2014.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Dakota Mayi Johnson (born October 4, 1989) is an American actress. The daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith, she made her film debut at age ten with a minor role in the dark comedy film "Crazy in Alabama" (1999) with her mother. After graduating high school, she began auditioning for roles in Los Angeles and was cast in a minor part in "The Social Network" (2010). Johnson had her breakthrough playing Anastasia Steele in the erotic romantic drama film series "Fifty Shades" (2015–2018), and received a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination in 2016.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Johnson appeared in films such as the crime drama "Black Mass" (2015), Luca Guadagnino's drama "A Bigger Splash" (2015), the romantic comedy "How to Be Single" (2016), the supernatural horror film "Suspiria" (2018), the thriller "Bad Times at the El Royale" (2018), the coming-of-age film "The Peanut Butter Falcon" (2019), Maggie Gyllenhaal's psychological drama "The Lost Daughter" (2021), and Cooper Raiff's "Cha Cha Real Smooth" (2022).


title: Dakota Johnson

text: She has received various awards and nominations, including a People's Choice Award, and nominations for a BAFTA Award and two MTV Movie & TV Awards. She was also featured in "Forbes" 30 Under 30 list in 2016.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Dakota Mayi Johnson was born on October 4, 1989, at Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, Texas, to actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith. Her father was shooting the film "The Hot Spot" (1990) in Texas when she was born. Her maternal grandparents are advertising executive and former child actor Peter Griffith and actress Tippi Hedren. She is a niece of actress Tracy Griffith and production designer Clay A. Griffith. Her former stepfather is Spanish actor Antonio Banderas. Johnson has six half-siblings: on her mother’s side, she has one half-brother, Alexander Bauer, and one half-sister, Stella Banderas; on her father’s side, she has three half-brothers—Jesse, Jasper, and Deacon—and one half-sister, Grace Johnson.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Because of her parents' acting work, Johnson spent much of her childhood in various locations with them on film sets and premieres, though she spent extended amounts of time in Aspen and Woody Creek, Colorado, where she worked during summers at the local market as a teenager. In Woody Creek, she was neighbors with Hunter S. Thompson, whom her father was longtime friends with, who would often come to their house in the early morning hours, announcing his presence by discharging a firearm. She attended the Aspen Community School for a time. "I was so consistently unmoored and discombobulated, I didn't have an anchor anywhere," Johnson recalled. She attended the Santa Catalina School in Monterey, California, for her freshman year of high school before transferring to the private New Roads School in Santa Monica, California.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Johnson became interested in modeling at age twelve after taking part in a photoshoot with other celebrities' children for "Teen Vogue", and subsequently earned an income modeling while attending high school in Santa Monica. She has struggled with depression since around age fourteen and checked into rehabilitation. Johnson was interested in acting as a child, spending significant time on film sets with her parents, but they discouraged her from pursuing the profession until she graduated from high school. After high school, she was turned down by Juilliard in New York City; her audition featured a cover of a Radiohead song.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: In 1999, Johnson made her film debut in "Crazy in Alabama", where she and her half-sister Stella Banderas played daughters to their real-life mother, Melanie Griffith. The film was directed by her then-stepfather, Antonio Banderas. In 2006, she was chosen as Miss Golden Globe 2006, where she served as the first second-generation Miss Golden Globe in the Globes' history.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: In 2006, Johnson signed with IMG Models. Though acting is her primary work, she has since modeled for MANGO brand's jeans line in 2009 and shot the "Rising Star" campaign for Australian fashion label Wish in 2011.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: After graduating from high school, Johnson took acting classes with teacher Tom Todoroff until 2008. She signed with the William Morris Agency and started her acting career. She appeared in a minor role as Amelia Ritter in the Oscar-nominated hit film "The Social Network" (2010), directed by David Fincher. She had a small role in the fantasy film "Beastly" (2011), followed by So Yong Kim's drama "For Ellen" (2012) opposite Paul Dano and Jon Heder, about a struggling musician in the midst of a custody battle. Also in 2012, she had roles in Christopher Neil's independent comedy "Goats", portraying a student at a prep school; Nicholas Stoller's romantic comedy "The Five-Year Engagement"; and the comedy "21 Jump Street". She also played the female lead in Chris Nelson's film "Date and Switch" written by Alan Yang.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: In March 2012, Johnson was cast as Kate in the Fox comedy series "Ben and Kate", marking her television debut. The show was canceled on January 25, 2013, after one season. Johnson quickly resumed her film career, with a small role in "Need for Speed" (2014). In 2013, she had a role as one of the new hires on the series finale episode of the NBC comedy series "The Office".


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Johnson's breakthrough came with her leading role as Anastasia "Ana" Steele in the erotic romantic drama film "Fifty Shades of Grey", which was released in February 2015 and brought her international recognition. Johnson won the role over Lucy Hale, Felicity Jones, Elizabeth Olsen, Danielle Panabaker and Shailene Woodley. In response to questions regarding her stance on gender rights concerning her character in the "Fifty Shades" film series, Johnson stated: "I'm proud of [the film]. I completely disagree with people who think Ana's weak. I think she's actually stronger than "he" is. Everything she does is her choice. And if I can be an advocate for women to do what they want to do with their bodies and not be ashamed of what they want, then I'm all for that." While the trilogy was widely criticized, Johnson received praise for often being the standout performer.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: On February 15, 2015, Johnson appeared on "Saturday Night Live"s 40th anniversary special and hosted "SNL" on February 28, 2015, making her the second daughter of a former "SNL" host (after Gwyneth Paltrow, whose mother Blythe Danner hosted during the show's seventh season in 1982) to host the show. Also in 2015, she reunited with her "21 Jump Street" cast member Johnny Depp, playing the mother of his character's child in the feature film "Black Mass". Jessica Kiang of IndieWire said that she "makes something of nothing" in her role. In 2015, Johnson starred in Luca Guadagnino's thriller "A Bigger Splash", alongside Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts and Ralph Fiennes. Writing for "Rolling Stone", Peter Travers stated that Johnson showed that her character "has more on her mind than slithering seductively". According to Christy Lemire from "RogerEbert.com": ""A Bigger Splash" allows Johnson to be both funnier and sexier than she was in "Fifty Shades of Grey"". The same year saw the release of "Cymbeline", a modern film adaptation of the William Shakespeare play, in which she starred opposite Ethan Hawke and Ed Harris. She also played a lead in the 2016 comedy "How to Be Single", with Leslie Mann and her "Date and Switch" co-star Nicholas Braun. She performed a cover of the song "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You", alongside actors Zani Jones Mbayise, Vanessa Rubio and Damon Wayans Jr. for the soundtrack of the film. Johnson was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in June 2016.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Johnson trained in dance to prepare for Luca Guadagnino's "Suspiria" (2018), a supernatural horror film and remake of the 1977 film by Dario Argento, in which she plays an American dancer in Berlin who enrolls in an academy run by a coven of witches. David Ehrlich of IndieWire described Johnson's performance in the film as "thrillingly unrepentant". Also in 2018, she starred in Drew Goddard's neo-noir thriller "Bad Times at the El Royale", with Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm and Chris Hemsworth. In the film, she plays a hippie staying at a resort on the California-Nevada border where the lives of various people with suspicious pasts intersect. "Screen Rant" ranked Johnson's performance as the fourth-best in the film and stated that "she brings a reserved, under-the-surface power to her role".


title: Dakota Johnson

text: In 2019, Johnson starred in the psychological horror film, "Wounds", opposite Armie Hammer, directed by Babak Anvari, based upon a horror novella "The Visible Filth" by Nathan Ballingrud. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2019. She then starred in the well-reviewed independent adventure film, "The Peanut Butter Falcon", opposite Shia LaBeouf and Bruce Dern, which had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 9, 2019. She appeared in the drama film "Our Friend", opposite Casey Affleck and Jason Segel, and directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. The film is based upon real life couple Nicole and Matthew Teague, faced with Nicole's impending death, see their best friend move in with them to help them out. She sang on three covers of songs for the film's soundtrack, including one of "If I Had the World to Give" by Grateful Dead. Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" wrote that the "intimacy of Ms. Johnson's performance is extraordinary. She is the least assertive of movie stars, yet the courage, despair and fury she finds in Nicole will lift you up and spin you around". While Gary Goldstein from the "Los Angeles Times" stated that Johnson "impresses with affecting range — from flirty, ebullient and adoring to stalwart, enraged and resigned; it's a lovely performance".


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Johnson founded the production company TeaTime Pictures, alongside former Netflix development executive Ro Donnelly, to develop film and television projects. In 2020, Johnson made her directorial debut, co-directing (with Cory Bailey) the music video for Coldplay's "Cry Cry Cry", which featured her boyfriend Chris Martin. Johnson starred alongside Tracee Ellis Ross in the dramedy film "The High Note", which was released on May 29, 2020. Her performance received mostly lukewarm reviews as Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" wrote that "she's lovely to look at and can never be accused of overacting, but in terms of conveying single-minded drive, Johnson is no match for [Tracee Ellis] Ross's carefully calibrated tonal swings between imperiousness, self-awareness, isolation and down-to-earth intimacy." Conversely Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun Times" saw it as "maybe her best and certainly most lovable performance." In 2021, she co-starred in "The Lost Daughter" directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, based on the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante. In 2022, she starred in a Netflix adaptation of author Jane Austen's "Persuasion", "Am I Ok?" by Stephanie Allyne and Tig Notaro"," and as a young mother in "Cha Cha Real Smooth" by Cooper Raiff.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: In 2019, it was announced that she was set to star in "Daddio" directed by Christy Hall and in "Crackpot" for director Elaine May. Additionally, Johnson signed on to star and produce "Rodeo Queens", a mockumentary series directed by Carrie Brownstein for Amazon Studios.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Johnson will serve as an executive producer on several films under TeaTime Pictures. She will produce and star in "Forever, Interrupted", in which she will play a young widow, "Unfit", in which she will portray Carrie Buck in a fact-based 1920s courtroom drama based on the non-fiction book "Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck" by Adam Cohen, and "Queens of the Stoned Age", based on the "GQ" article by Suketu Mehta. Additionally, she will star and produce the miniseries "Cult Following".


title: Dakota Johnson

text: In December 2021, Boat Rocker Media acquired a minority interest in Johnson's TeaTime Pictures company.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: In February 2022, Johnson was cast as Madame Web in the upcoming superhero film of the same name, set in Sony's Spider-Man Universe.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: In November 2020, it was announced that she had become an investor and co-creative director of Maude, a sexual wellness brand.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Johnson was previously involved in long-term relationships with her childhood sweetheart, musician Noah Gersh and actor Jordan Masterson. She dated Matthew Hitt, the lead vocalist of Welsh indie rock band Drowners, intermittently for almost two years until 2016. She has been in a relationship with English musician and singer Chris Martin since October 2017. They reside in Malibu, California.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: In 2018, she collaborated with 300 women in Hollywood to set up the Time's Up initiative to protect women from harassment and discrimination.


title: Dakota Johnson

text: Among her accolades, Johnson received the Robert Altman Award from the Independent Spirit Awards as a part of the ensemble for "Suspiria". For her work in the "Fifty Shades" film series, she received a People's Choice Award, as well as nomination for two MTV Movie & TV Awards. She was nominated for BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2016.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Stephen William Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who, at the time of his death, was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between 1979 and 2009, he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was born in Oxford into a family of physicians. In October 1959, at the age of 17, he began his university education at University College, Oxford, where he received a first-class BA degree in physics. In October 1962, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge where, in March 1966, he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology. In 1963, at age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease that gradually, over decades, paralysed him. After the loss of his speech, he communicated through a speech-generating device initially through use of a handheld switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking's scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Initially, Hawking radiation was controversial. By the late 1970s and following the publication of further research, the discovery was widely accepted as a major breakthrough in theoretical physics. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking achieved commercial success with several works of popular science in which he discussed his theories and cosmology in general. His book "A Brief History of Time" appeared on the "Sunday Times" bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He died in 2018 at the age of 76, after living with motor neurone disease for more than 50 years.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford to Frank and Isobel Eileen Hawking ("" Walker). Hawking's mother was born into a family of doctors in Glasgow, Scotland. His wealthy paternal great-grandfather, from Yorkshire, over-extended himself buying farm land and then went bankrupt in the great agricultural depression during the early 20th century. His paternal great-grandmother saved the family from financial ruin by opening a school in their home. Despite their families' financial constraints, both parents attended the University of Oxford, where Frank read medicine and Isobel read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Isobel worked as a secretary for a medical research institute, and Frank was a medical researcher. Hawking had two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward Frank David (1955–2003).


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In 1950, when Hawking's father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research, the family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire. In St Albans, the family was considered highly intelligent and somewhat eccentric; meals were often spent with each person silently reading a book. They lived a frugal existence in a large, cluttered, and poorly maintained house and travelled in a converted London taxicab. During one of Hawking's father's frequent absences working in Africa, the rest of the family spent four months in Mallorca visiting his mother's friend Beryl and her husband, the poet Robert Graves.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking began his schooling at the Byron House School in Highgate, London. He later blamed its "progressive methods" for his failure to learn to read while at the school. In St Albans, the eight-year-old Hawking attended St Albans High School for Girls for a few months. At that time, younger boys could attend one of the houses.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking attended two independent (i.e. fee-paying) schools, first Radlett School and from September 1952, St Albans School, after passing the eleven-plus a year early. The family placed a high value on education. Hawking's father wanted his son to attend the well-regarded Westminster School, but the 13-year-old Hawking was ill on the day of the scholarship examination. His family could not afford the school fees without the financial aid of a scholarship, so Hawking remained at St Albans. A positive consequence was that Hawking remained close to a group of friends with whom he enjoyed board games, the manufacture of fireworks, model aeroplanes and boats, and long discussions about Christianity and extrasensory perception. From 1958 on, with the help of the mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta, they built a computer from clock parts, an old telephone switchboard and other recycled components.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Although known at school as "Einstein", Hawking was not initially successful academically. With time, he began to show considerable aptitude for scientific subjects and, inspired by Tahta, decided to read mathematics at university. Hawking's father advised him to study medicine, concerned that there were few jobs for mathematics graduates. He also wanted his son to attend University College, Oxford, his own "alma mater". As it was not possible to read mathematics there at the time, Hawking decided to study physics and chemistry. Despite his headmaster's advice to wait until the next year, Hawking was awarded a scholarship after taking the examinations in March 1959.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking began his university education at University College, Oxford, in October 1959 at the age of 17. For the first eighteen months, he was bored and lonelyhe found the academic work "ridiculously easy". His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said, "It was only necessary for him to know that something could be done, and he could do it without looking to see how other people did it." A change occurred during his second and third years when, according to Berman, Hawking made more of an effort "to be one of the boys". He developed into a popular, lively and witty college-member, interested in classical music and science fiction. Part of the transformation resulted from his decision to join the college boat-club, the University College Boat Club, where he coxed a rowing-crew. The rowing-coach at the time noted that Hawking cultivated a daredevil image, steering his crew on risky courses that led to damaged boats. Hawking estimated that he studied about 1,000 hours during his three years at Oxford. These unimpressive study habits made sitting his finals a challenge, and he decided to answer only theoretical physics questions rather than those requiring factual knowledge. A first-class degree was a condition of acceptance for his planned graduate study in cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Anxious, he slept poorly the night before the examinations, and the result was on the borderline between first- and second-class honours, making a "viva" (oral examination) with the Oxford examiners necessary.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was concerned that he was viewed as a lazy and difficult student. So, when asked at the "viva" to describe his plans, he said, "If you award me a First, I will go to Cambridge. If I receive a Second, I shall stay in Oxford, so I expect you will give me a First." He was held in higher regard than he believed; as Berman commented, the examiners "were intelligent enough to realise they were talking to someone far cleverer than most of themselves". After receiving a first-class BA degree in physics and completing a trip to Iran with a friend, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in October 1962.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking's first year as a doctoral student was difficult. He was initially disappointed to find that he had been assigned Dennis William Sciama, one of the founders of modern cosmology, as a supervisor rather than the noted astronomer Fred Hoyle, and he found his training in mathematics inadequate for work in general relativity and cosmology. After being diagnosed with motor neurone disease, Hawking fell into a depressionthough his doctors advised that he continue with his studies, he felt there was little point. His disease progressed more slowly than doctors had predicted. Although Hawking had difficulty walking unsupported, and his speech was almost unintelligible, an initial diagnosis that he had only two years to live proved unfounded. With Sciama's encouragement, he returned to his work. Hawking started developing a reputation for brilliance and brashness when he publicly challenged the work of Fred Hoyle and his student Jayant Narlikar at a lecture in June 1964.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: When Hawking began his doctoral studies, there was much debate in the physics community about the prevailing theories of the creation of the universe: the Big Bang and Steady State theories. Inspired by Roger Penrose's theorem of a spacetime singularity in the centre of black holes, Hawking applied the same thinking to the entire universe; and, during 1965, he wrote his thesis on this topic. Hawking's thesis was approved in 1966. There were other positive developments: Hawking received a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge; he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology, in March 1966; and his essay "Singularities and the Geometry of Space–Time" shared top honours with one by Penrose to win that year's prestigious Adams Prize.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In his work, and in collaboration with Penrose, Hawking extended the singularity theorem concepts first explored in his doctoral thesis. This included not only the existence of singularities but also the theory that the universe might have started as a singularity. Their joint essay was the runner-up in the 1968 Gravity Research Foundation competition. In 1970, they published a proof that if the universe obeys the general theory of relativity and fits any of the models of physical cosmology developed by Alexander Friedmann, then it must have begun as a singularity. In 1969, Hawking accepted a specially created Fellowship for Distinction in Science to remain at Caius.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In 1970, Hawking postulated what became known as the second law of black hole dynamics, that the event horizon of a black hole can never get smaller. With James M. Bardeen and Brandon Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics. To Hawking's irritation, Jacob Bekenstein, a graduate student of John Wheeler, went further—and ultimately correctly—to apply thermodynamic concepts literally.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In the early 1970s, Hawking's work with Carter, Werner Israel, and David C. Robinson strongly supported Wheeler's no-hair theorem, one that states that no matter what the original material from which a black hole is created, it can be completely described by the properties of mass, electrical charge and rotation. His essay titled "Black Holes" won the Gravity Research Foundation Award in January 1971. Hawking's first book, "The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time," written with George Ellis, was published in 1973.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Beginning in 1973, Hawking moved into the study of quantum gravity and quantum mechanics. His work in this area was spurred by a visit to Moscow and discussions with Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich and Alexei Starobinsky, whose work showed that according to the uncertainty principle, rotating black holes emit particles. To Hawking's annoyance, his much-checked calculations produced findings that contradicted his second law, which claimed black holes could never get smaller, and supported Bekenstein's reasoning about their entropy.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: His results, which Hawking presented from 1974, showed that black holes emit radiation, known today as Hawking radiation, which may continue until they exhaust their energy and evaporate. Initially, Hawking radiation was controversial. By the late 1970s and following the publication of further research, the discovery was widely accepted as a significant breakthrough in theoretical physics. Hawking was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1974, a few weeks after the announcement of Hawking radiation. At the time, he was one of the youngest scientists to become a Fellow.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking was appointed to the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Visiting Professorship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1974. He worked with a friend on the faculty, Kip Thorne, and engaged him in a scientific wager about whether the X-ray source Cygnus X-1 was a black hole. The wager was an "insurance policy" against the proposition that black holes did not exist. Hawking acknowledged that he had lost the bet in 1990, a bet that was the first of several he was to make with Thorne and others. Hawking had maintained ties to Caltech, spending a month there almost every year since this first visit.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking returned to Cambridge in 1975 to a more academically senior post, as reader in gravitational physics. The mid-to-late 1970s were a period of growing public interest in black holes and the physicists who were studying them. Hawking was regularly interviewed for print and television. He also received increasing academic recognition of his work. In 1975, he was awarded both the Eddington Medal and the Pius XI Gold Medal, and in 1976 the Dannie Heineman Prize, the Maxwell Medal and Prize and the Hughes Medal. He was appointed a professor with a chair in gravitational physics in 1977. The following year he received the Albert Einstein Medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In 1979, Hawking was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. His inaugural lecture in this role was titled: "Is the End in Sight for Theoretical Physics?" and proposed "N" = 8 supergravity as the leading theory to solve many of the outstanding problems physicists were studying. His promotion coincided with a health-crisis which led to his accepting, albeit reluctantly, some nursing services at home. At the same time, he was also making a transition in his approach to physics, becoming more intuitive and speculative rather than insisting on mathematical proofs. "I would rather be right than rigorous", he told Kip Thorne. In 1981, he proposed that information in a black hole is irretrievably lost when a black hole evaporates. This information paradox violates the fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics, and led to years of debate, including "the Black Hole War" with Leonard Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Cosmological inflationa theory proposing that following the Big Bang, the universe initially expanded incredibly rapidly before settling down to a slower expansionwas proposed by Alan Guth and also developed by Andrei Linde. Following a conference in Moscow in October 1981, Hawking and Gary Gibbons organised a three-week Nuffield Workshop in the summer of 1982 on "The Very Early Universe" at Cambridge University, a workshop that focused mainly on inflation theory. Hawking also began a new line of quantum-theory research into the origin of the universe. In 1981 at a Vatican conference, he presented work suggesting that there might be no boundaryor beginning or endingto the universe.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking subsequently developed the research in collaboration with Jim Hartle, and in 1983 they published a model, known as the Hartle–Hawking state. It proposed that prior to the Planck epoch, the universe had no boundary in space-time; before the Big Bang, time did not exist and the concept of the beginning of the universe is meaningless. The initial singularity of the classical Big Bang models was replaced with a region akin to the North Pole. One cannot travel north of the North Pole, but there is no boundary thereit is simply the point where all north-running lines meet and end. Initially, the no-boundary proposal predicted a closed universe, which had implications about the existence of God. As Hawking explained, "If the universe has no boundaries but is self-contained... then God would not have had any freedom to choose how the universe began."


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking did not rule out the existence of a Creator, asking in "A Brief History of Time" "Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence?", also stating "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reasonfor then we should know the mind of God"; in his early work, Hawking spoke of God in a metaphorical sense. In the same book he suggested that the existence of God was not necessary to explain the origin of the universe. Later discussions with Neil Turok led to the realisation that the existence of God was also compatible with an open universe.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Further work by Hawking in the area of arrows of time led to the 1985 publication of a paper theorising that if the no-boundary proposition were correct, then when the universe stopped expanding and eventually collapsed, time would run backwards. A paper by Don Page and independent calculations by Raymond Laflamme led Hawking to withdraw this concept. Honours continued to be awarded: in 1981 he was awarded the American Franklin Medal, and in the 1982 New Year Honours appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). These awards did not significantly change Hawking's financial status, and motivated by the need to finance his children's education and home-expenses, he decided in 1982 to write a popular book about the universe that would be accessible to the general public. Instead of publishing with an academic press, he signed a contract with Bantam Books, a mass-market publisher, and received a large advance for his book. A first draft of the book, called "A Brief History of Time", was completed in 1984.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: One of the first messages Hawking produced with his speech-generating device was a request for his assistant to help him finish writing "A Brief History of Time". Peter Guzzardi, his editor at Bantam, pushed him to explain his ideas clearly in non-technical language, a process that required many revisions from an increasingly irritated Hawking. The book was published in April 1988 in the US and in June in the UK, and it proved to be an extraordinary success, rising quickly to the top of best-seller lists in both countries and remaining there for months. The book was translated into many languages, and as of 2009, has sold an estimated 9million copies.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Media attention was intense, and a "Newsweek" magazine-cover and a television special both described him as "Master of the Universe". Success led to significant financial rewards, but also the challenges of celebrity status. Hawking travelled extensively to promote his work, and enjoyed partying and dancing into the small hours. A difficulty refusing the invitations and visitors left him limited time for work and his students. Some colleagues were resentful of the attention Hawking received, feeling it was due to his disability.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: He received further academic recognition, including five more honorary degrees, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1985), the Paul Dirac Medal (1987) and, jointly with Penrose, the prestigious Wolf Prize (1988). In the 1989 Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Companion of Honour (CH). He reportedly declined a knighthood in the late 1990s in objection to the UK's science funding policy.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking pursued his work in physics: in 1993 he co-edited a book on Euclidean quantum gravity with Gary Gibbons and published a collected edition of his own articles on black holes and the Big Bang. In 1994, at Cambridge's Newton Institute, Hawking and Penrose delivered a series of six lectures that were published in 1996 as "The Nature of Space and Time". In 1997, he conceded a 1991 public scientific wager made with Kip Thorne and John Preskill of Caltech. Hawking had bet that Penrose's proposal of a "cosmic censorship conjecture"that there could be no "naked singularities" unclothed within a horizonwas correct.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: After discovering his concession might have been premature, a new and more refined wager was made. This one specified that such singularities would occur without extra conditions. The same year, Thorne, Hawking and Preskill made another bet, this time concerning the black hole information paradox. Thorne and Hawking argued that since general relativity made it impossible for black holes to radiate and lose information, the mass-energy and information carried by Hawking radiation must be "new", and not from inside the black hole event horizon. Since this contradicted the quantum mechanics of microcausality, quantum mechanics theory would need to be rewritten. Preskill argued the opposite, that since quantum mechanics suggests that the information emitted by a black hole relates to information that fell in at an earlier time, the concept of black holes given by general relativity must be modified in some way.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking also maintained his public profile, including bringing science to a wider audience. A film version of "A Brief History of Time", directed by Errol Morris and produced by Steven Spielberg, premiered in 1992. Hawking had wanted the film to be scientific rather than biographical, but he was persuaded otherwise. The film, while a critical success, was not widely released. A popular-level collection of essays, interviews, and talks titled "Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays" was published in 1993, and a six-part television series "Stephen Hawking's Universe" and a companion book appeared in 1997. As Hawking insisted, this time the focus was entirely on science.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking continued his writings for a popular audience, publishing "The Universe in a Nutshell" in 2001, and "A Briefer History of Time", which he wrote in 2005 with Leonard Mlodinow to update his earlier works with the aim of making them accessible to a wider audience, and "God Created the Integers", which appeared in 2006. Along with Thomas Hertog at CERN and Jim Hartle, from 2006 on Hawking developed a theory of top-down cosmology, which says that the universe had not one unique initial state but many different ones, and therefore that it is inappropriate to formulate a theory that predicts the universe's current configuration from one particular initial state. Top-down cosmology posits that the present "selects" the past from a superposition of many possible histories. In doing so, the theory suggests a possible resolution of the fine-tuning question.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking continued to travel widely, including trips to Chile, Easter Island, South Africa, Spain (to receive the Fonseca Prize in 2008), Canada, and numerous trips to the United States. For practical reasons related to his disability, Hawking increasingly travelled by private jet, and by 2011 that had become his only mode of international travel.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: By 2003, consensus among physicists was growing that Hawking was wrong about the loss of information in a black hole. In a 2004 lecture in Dublin, he conceded his 1997 bet with Preskill, but described his own, somewhat controversial solution to the information paradox problem, involving the possibility that black holes have more than one topology. In the 2005 paper he published on the subject, he argued that the information paradox was explained by examining all the alternative histories of universes, with the information loss in those with black holes being cancelled out by those without such loss. In January 2014, he called the alleged loss of information in black holes his "biggest blunder".


title: Stephen Hawking

text: As part of another longstanding scientific dispute, Hawking had emphatically argued, and bet, that the Higgs boson would never be found. The particle was proposed to exist as part of the Higgs field theory by Peter Higgs in 1964. Hawking and Higgs engaged in a heated and public debate over the matter in 2002 and again in 2008, with Higgs criticising Hawking's work and complaining that Hawking's "celebrity status gives him instant credibility that others do not have." The particle was discovered in July 2012 at CERN following construction of the Large Hadron Collider. Hawking quickly conceded that he had lost his bet and said that Higgs should win the Nobel Prize for Physics, which he did in 2013.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In 2007, Hawking and his daughter Lucy published "George's Secret Key to the Universe", a children's book designed to explain theoretical physics in an accessible fashion and featuring characters similar to those in the Hawking family. The book was followed by sequels in 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2016.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In 2002, following a UK-wide vote, the BBC included Hawking in their list of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was awarded the Copley Medal from the Royal Society (2006), the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is America's highest civilian honour (2009), and the Russian Special Fundamental Physics Prize (2013).


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Several buildings have been named after him, including the Stephen W. Hawking Science Museum in San Salvador, ElSalvador, the Stephen Hawking Building in Cambridge, and the Stephen Hawking Centre at the Perimeter Institute in Canada. Appropriately, given Hawking's association with time, he unveiled the mechanical "Chronophage" (or time-eating) Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in September 2008.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: During his career, Hawking supervised 39 successful PhD students. One doctoral student did not successfully complete the PhD. As required by Cambridge University policy, Hawking retired as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 2009. Despite suggestions that he might leave the United Kingdom as a protest against public funding cuts to basic scientific research, Hawking worked as director of research at the Cambridge University Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: On 28 June 2009, as a tongue-in-cheek test of his 1992 conjecture that travel into the past is effectively impossible, Hawking held a party open to all, complete with hors d'oeuvres and iced champagne, but publicised the party only after it was over so that only time-travellers would know to attend; as expected, nobody showed up to the party.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: On 20 July 2015, Hawking helped launch Breakthrough Initiatives, an effort to search for extraterrestrial life. Hawking created "Stephen Hawking: Expedition New Earth", a documentary on space colonisation, as a 2017 episode of "Tomorrow's World".


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In August 2015, Hawking said that not all information is lost when something enters a black hole and there might be a possibility to retrieve information from a black hole according to his theory. In July 2017, Hawking was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Imperial College London.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking's final paper – "A smooth exit from eternal inflation?" – was posthumously published in the "Journal of High Energy Physics" on 27 April 2018.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking met his future wife, Jane Wilde, at a party in 1962. The following year, Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. In October 1964, the couple became engaged to marry, aware of the potential challenges that lay ahead due to Hawking's shortened life expectancy and physical limitations. Hawking later said that the engagement gave him "something to live for". The two were married on 14 July 1965 in their shared hometown of St Albans.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: The couple resided in Cambridge, within Hawking's walking distance to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP). During their first years of marriage, Jane lived in London during the week as she completed her degree at Westfield College. They travelled to the United States several times for conferences and physics-related visits. Jane began a PhD programme through Westfield College in medieval Spanish poetry (completed in 1981). The couple had three children: Robert, born May 1967, Lucy, born November 1970, and Timothy, born April 1979.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking rarely discussed his illness and physical challenges—even, in a precedent set during their courtship, with Jane. His disabilities meant that the responsibilities of home and family rested firmly on his wife's increasingly overwhelmed shoulders, leaving him more time to think about physics. Upon his appointment in 1974 to a year-long position at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, Jane proposed that a graduate or post-doctoral student live with them and help with his care. Hawking accepted, and Bernard Carr travelled with them as the first of many students who fulfilled this role. The family spent a generally happy and stimulating year in Pasadena.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking returned to Cambridge in 1975 to a new home and a new job, as reader. Don Page, with whom Hawking had begun a close friendship at Caltech, arrived to work as the live-in graduate student assistant. With Page's help and that of a secretary, Jane's responsibilities were reduced so she could return to her doctoral thesis and her new interest in singing.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Around December 1977, Jane met organist Jonathan Hellyer Jones when singing in a church choir. Hellyer Jones became close to the Hawking family, and by the mid-1980s, he and Jane had developed romantic feelings for each other. According to Jane, her husband was accepting of the situation, stating "he would not object so long as I continued to love him". Jane and Hellyer Jones were determined not to break up the family, and their relationship remained platonic for a long period.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: By the 1980s, Hawking's marriage had been strained for many years. Jane felt overwhelmed by the intrusion into their family life of the required nurses and assistants. The impact of his celebrity status was challenging for colleagues and family members, while the prospect of living up to a worldwide fairytale image was daunting for the couple. Hawking's views of religion also contrasted with her strong Christian faith and resulted in tension. After a tracheotomy in 1985, Hawking required a full-time nurse and nursing care was split across 3 shifts daily. In the late 1980s, Hawking grew close to one of his nurses, Elaine Mason, to the dismay of some colleagues, caregivers, and family members, who were disturbed by her strength of personality and protectiveness. In February 1990, Hawking told Jane that he was leaving her for Mason, and departed the family home. After his divorce from Jane in 1995, Hawking married Mason in September, declaring, "It's wonderfulI have married the woman I love."


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In 1999, Jane Hawking published a memoir, "Music to Move the Stars", describing her marriage to Hawking and its breakdown. Its revelations caused a sensation in the media but, as was his usual practice regarding his personal life, Hawking made no public comment except to say that he did not read biographies about himself. After his second marriage, Hawking's family felt excluded and marginalised from his life. For a period of about five years in the early 2000s, his family and staff became increasingly worried that he was being physically abused. Police investigations took place, but were closed as Hawking refused to make a complaint.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In 2006, Hawking and Mason quietly divorced, and Hawking resumed closer relationships with Jane, his children, and his grandchildren. Reflecting on this happier period, a revised version of Jane's book, re-titled "Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen", appeared in 2007, and was made into a film, "The Theory of Everything", in 2014.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking had a rare early-onset, slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease (MND; also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurones in the brain and spinal cord, which gradually paralysed him over decades.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking had experienced increasing clumsiness during his final year at Oxford, including a fall on some stairs and difficulties when rowing. The problems worsened, and his speech became slightly slurred. His family noticed the changes when he returned home for Christmas, and medical investigations were begun. The MND diagnosis came when Hawking was 21, in 1963. At the time, doctors gave him a life expectancy of two years.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In the late 1960s, Hawking's physical abilities declined: he began to use crutches and could no longer give lectures regularly. As he slowly lost the ability to write, he developed compensatory visual methods, including seeing equations in terms of geometry. The physicist Werner Israel later compared the achievements to Mozart composing an entire symphony in his head. Hawking was fiercely independent and unwilling to accept help or make concessions for his disabilities. He preferred to be regarded as "a scientist first, popular science writer second, and, in all the ways that matter, a normal human being with the same desires, drives, dreams, and ambitions as the next person." His wife Jane later noted: "Some people would call it determination, some obstinacy. I've called it both at one time or another." He required much persuasion to accept the use of a wheelchair at the end of the 1960s, but ultimately became notorious for the wildness of his wheelchair driving. Hawking was a popular and witty colleague, but his illness, as well as his reputation for brashness, distanced him from some.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: When Hawking first began using a wheelchair he was using standard motorised models. The earliest surviving example of these chairs was made by BEC Mobility and sold by Christie's in November 2018 for £296,750. Hawking continued to use this type of chair until the early 1990s, at which time his ability to use his hands to drive a wheelchair deteriorated. Hawking used a variety of different chairs from that time, including a DragonMobility Dragon elevating powerchair from 2007, as shown in the April 2008 photo of Hawking attending NASA's 50th anniversary; a Permobil C350 from 2014; and then a Permobil F3 from 2016.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking's speech deteriorated, and by the late 1970s he could be understood by only his family and closest friends. To communicate with others, someone who knew him well would interpret his speech into intelligible speech. Spurred by a dispute with the university over who would pay for the ramp needed for him to enter his workplace, Hawking and his wife campaigned for improved access and support for those with disabilities in Cambridge, including adapted student housing at the university. In general, Hawking had ambivalent feelings about his role as a disability rights champion: while wanting to help others, he also sought to detach himself from his illness and its challenges. His lack of engagement in this area led to some criticism.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: During a visit to CERN on the border of France and Switzerland in mid-1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia, which in his condition was life-threatening; he was so ill that Jane was asked if life support should be terminated. She refused, but the consequence was a tracheotomy, which required round-the-clock nursing care and the removal of what remained of his speech. The National Health Service was ready to pay for a nursing home, but Jane was determined that he would live at home. The cost of the care was funded by an American foundation. Nurses were hired for the three shifts required to provide the round-the-clock support he required. One of those employed was Elaine Mason, who was to become Hawking's second wife.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: For his communication, Hawking initially raised his eyebrows to choose letters on a spelling card, but in 1986 he received a computer program called the "Equalizer" from Walter Woltosz, CEO of Words Plus, who had developed an earlier version of the software to help his mother-in-law, who also had ALS and had lost her ability to speak and write. In a method he used for the rest of his life, Hawking could now simply press a switch to select phrases, words or letters from a bank of about 2,500–3,000 that were scanned. The program was originally run on a desktop computer. Elaine Mason's husband, David, a computer engineer, adapted a small computer and attached it to his wheelchair.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Released from the need to use somebody to interpret his speech, Hawking commented that "I can communicate better now than before I lost my voice." The voice he used had an American accent and is no longer produced. Despite the later availability of other voices, Hawking retained this original voice, saying that he preferred it and identified with it. Originally, Hawking activated a switch using his hand and could produce up to 15 words per minute. Lectures were prepared in advance and were sent to the speech synthesiser in short sections to be delivered.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Hawking gradually lost the use of his hand, and in 2005 he began to control his communication device with movements of his cheek muscles, with a rate of about one word per minute. With this decline there was a risk of his developing locked-in syndrome, so Hawking collaborated with Intel researchers on systems that could translate his brain patterns or facial expressions into switch activations. After several prototypes that did not perform as planned, they settled on an adaptive word predictor made by the London-based startup SwiftKey, which used a system similar to his original technology. Hawking had an easier time adapting to the new system, which was further developed after inputting large amounts of Hawking's papers and other written materials and uses predictive software similar to other smartphone keyboards.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: By 2009, he could no longer drive his wheelchair independently, but the same people who created his new typing mechanics were working on a method to drive his chair using movements made by his chin. This proved difficult, since Hawking could not move his neck, and trials showed that while he could indeed drive the chair, the movement was sporadic and jumpy. Near the end of his life, Hawking experienced increased breathing difficulties, often resulting in his requiring the usage of a ventilator, and being regularly hospitalised.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: Starting in the 1990s, Hawking accepted the mantle of role model for disabled people, lecturing and participating in fundraising activities. At the turn of the century, he and eleven other humanitarians signed the "Charter for the Third Millennium on Disability", which called on governments to prevent disability and protect the rights of disabled people. In 1999, Hawking was awarded the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society.


title: Stephen Hawking

text: In August 2012, Hawking narrated the "Enlightenment" segment of the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony in London. In 2013, the biographical documentary film "Hawking", in which Hawking himself is featured, was released. In September 2013, he expressed support for the legalisation of assisted suicide for the terminally ill. In August 2014, Hawking accepted the Ice Bucket Challenge to promote ALS/MND awareness and raise contributions for research. As he had pneumonia in 2013, he was advised not to have ice poured over him, but his children volunteered to accept the challenge on his behalf.