Leader: Inspiring formula for success

Few inspire as much awe and admiration as Stephen Hawking, now 70 years old and sadly suffering from an infection which prevented him attending his birthday celebration at Trinity College yesterday.

Battling with the near-complete physical immobility caused by motor neurone disease and the loss of his voice would have been overwhelming for most people. He has not only done that and gone on to be a professor of mathematics, but to be the world’s foremost mathematician of his time. And for an academic mathematician he has been able to achieve the rare feat of communicating his advanced learning to the general public.

His address to Trinity College offered a rare insight into the human side of his genius. He was a late developer, not learning to read until he was eight and, somewhat fantastically, he claims to have had no formal instruction in maths after leaving school. Instead, he appears to have been entirely self-taught, confessing that he blagged his way through employment as a maths lecturer by teaching himself the course one week ahead of the undergraduates he was tutoring.

Stay curious, he told his audience, and keep looking up to the stars rather than down at your feet. We could hardly do better than look to the example of Prof Hawking.