When Stephen Hawking
died in March 2018.
We all knew we had
lost a great and
brilliant scientist.
People had compared him to
Isaac Newton and Einstein.
Today I have with me
Professor Richard
Bell who's
>>going to look at
Stephen Hawking in
a slightly different
context and compare him
to a different person.
He wants to examine the links
between Wagner, and
scientists. Richard,
>>I can make all the links
between Stephen Hawking and
physicists and
cosmologists but
not with Wagner.
Ok I mean perhaps I can first of all
say is actually striking
how many scientists are
actually attracted to
the music and the drama
of Richard Wagner.
It's really quite
aside from just
giving you some examples.
There's Marcus du Sautoy,
Richard Dawkins, Martin Rees
then Samuel Izacke these are all
contemporary scientists
that actually love Wagner
and perhaps the most
famous scientist
Wagnerian was Stephen Hawking.
>> Oh right...
Oh yeah yeah.
It's very very interesting
that I think he got to know
Wagner in his teens.
Now when he was
diagnosed with
Motor Neuron disease
one of the ways he
actually coped with
this devastating
news was to
listen to lots and lots
of Wagner very high
volume as well.
>> OK
One of his
favourites was actually
The Valkyrie which is
the second opera in the Ring Cycle.
And many people
know that because
the Ride of the Valkyries
but he
was a serious Wagnerian.
And he [Hawking] said that
on his last day on
this earth he would
listen to Wagner and drink
champagne. So he was actually very committed.
Now as I say many
scientists are actually attracted 
to Wagner, and I've often
wondered why is?
It's also 
the case that many
politicians are attracted.
Many lawyers are attracted
many people have
stressful jobs.
They're attractive
because I think they
come home and
they just want
to this is some sort
of therapy I think.
But why is it that
scientists are
subtracted and
Wagner he said
that in his Ring
Cycle he was
concerned to
investigate the
essence of the world.
Itself. He is very very
interested in nature.
In fact he read
avidly, he would read
Hegel, Goethe, Schopenhauer
Kant and so on.
And he was very
very interested in
the in the very essence
of the world itself.
And this may be
one reason why
Stephen Hawking was
attracted but
the something.
In Stephen Hawking's
cosmology which
has remarkable
resonance with
the passage in Parsifal. Now
Parsifal is Wagner's
last stage work.
And in Act One there's this
amazing line
where Gurnemanz
says to Parsifal as
they approach the
counsel of the Krill.
"Here time becomes space."
"Here time becomes space."
Many people have
actually written about
this whether it's
anticipating
Einstein, it's probably not
really anticipating
Einstein
but what is very very interesting.
Let's now look at
Hawkins cosmology.
Now obviously is
working a lot on
things like the Big Bang.
And I want us
to imagine that
we're going back in time.
So the cameras
running backwards
to the beginning
of the universe.
And you could actually
imagine sort of
a cone, an inverted cone,
and you've got a point
at the Big Bang,
people often talk
about a singularity.
We've got the time
dimension here.
and we've got a cone
so we're imagining
here two-dimensions
in space
and one of time.
The way many
people imagine it
is the Big Bang
started with this point at
the tip of this cone
and then everything
expanded out from that,
that's a very very simple
way of doing it.
Now what Hawking did
he worked with someone
called Jim Hartle and he
talked about the
the wave function
for the whole universe.
So it's bringing
in quantum theory
here into cosmology.
And what he said is
that we don't actually have a cone
which goes to
a single point,
but rather the
cone comes down,
and it sort of rounds
off and you never
actually reach the
point of t equals 0.
And the way he put
it is that as you go
back towards what we
think is the Big Bang.
Time takes on
spatial qualities
but it does this gradually
so you end up with
all dimensions of space
and time seems to
sort of gets cut
out and say if you
take these words
of Gurnemanz; "Here
time becomes space."
You get an exact
correspondence.
Now I don't know
if Stephen Hawking
was actually aware of
this correspondence but
I actually think this is, 
quite this is really
quite striking.
And so what we find
therefore with Wagner
is that he especially
in the Ring Cycle
he's very much
concerned with
the with nature with
the essence of the world.
And this may be
one reason why
his music and his
drama appeals
to people such as
Stephen Hawking
>> Richard Thank you
very much for exploring
this very unusual aspect of
Stephen Hawking's
likes and also giving
us a possible new way
of looking at
both Wagner
and at the whole question
of the Big Bang. Thank you.
>> Thank you Tom.
