Hawking’s scientific archive and personal papers will be added to the collection of the Cambridge University Library, while all the objects from the physicist’s office will be preserved in the London Science Museum, where a sample of them in 2022.
A vast assortment of papers and personal belongings of physicist Stephen Hawking, from wheelchairs to his scripts for The Simpsons , will pass into the public hands as part of the collections of the Cambridge University Library and the London Science Museum. This was announced in a joint statement by the two institutions, which acquired the articles in a pact with the British Government, after the family of the scientist, who died in 2018, decided to donate them to the nation as part of a program to offset the bill. inheritance tax.
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With this agreement, Hawking’s scientific archive and personal papers will become part of the collection of the Cambridge University Library, while all the objects in the physicist’s office will be preserved in the Science Museum, where a sample of them in 2022. Hawking’s legacy to be preserved by Cambridge includes letters dated between 1944 and 2008, a first draft of the book A Brief History of Time , film and series scripts, as well as signed scientific manuscripts in the early years of his prominent career . Among the correspondence that Hawking sent from his home in Cambridge, noteworthy letters to popes of Rome, American presidents and notorious scientists, letters that will be added to a documentary compilation of more than 10,000 pages that will share space with the archives of the scientists Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, also preserved in Cambridge. On the other hand, the Science Museum will keep all the objects that Hawking kept in his office, such as medals, memorabilia and his personal reference library, as well as his communication equipment and innovative wheelchairs.
Hawking’s children, Robert, Tim and Lucy, expressed in a statement their satisfaction that part of the legacy is preserved in a way accessible to the public: “Our father firmly believed that everyone should have the opportunity to connect with science. We hope that his career continues to inspire generations of future scientists to gain new insights into the nature of the universe, ”the brothers remarked. For her part, the British Secretary for Culture and Digital, Caroline Dinenage, said in the same note that the Cambridge University Library and the Science Museum are the “ideal home” for Hawking’s work, which had an “impact unforgettable in the world ”.
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