Someone beating up Stephen Hawking...

wasteofo2

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040119_134.html

For some reason it doesn't seem to add up. The man can talk, if someone were just randomly beating him I don't get why he wouldn't say something. And how could someone be left stranded in the middle of their own garden in an electric wheelchair? Are they implying someone in his home left him there without power in his chair and he didn't identify them?

Zantra

Somene's beating up crippled guys? How sad and dispicable.

russ_watters

No, he can't talk and he can only control the wheelchair with small twitches in one hand. Take the controller out of his hand and put it next to his hand and he'd be stranded.

one_raven

Yes, he can "talk".
He can communicate quite complex ideas and hold a normal conversation with his computer.
I think what wasteofo2 was getting at was that he has the capability to tell someone exactly what is going on, such as, "Yes, officer, I did see the man who did this. It was my gardener, John."
And he was making a comment that it doesn't add up that the police will have to even investigate whether or not someone HAS BEEN beating him, when they can just ask Stephen himself.
It's not like a murder investigation, you can talk to the victim and he can respond.

Ivan Seeking

This is strange. I'm betting that the report is bogus...at the least, something is wrong with this story.

Otherwise, the only thing that seems to make sense is that Dr. Hawking is protecting someone who is harming him. If he can still communicate effectively, then why the mystery? Very strange.

Javelin_mad

maybe he went too far into his garden and the plug came out of the wall leaving him stranded.... i say it was a couple tadpoles that beat him up and he is too embarrased to tell anyone!!!

Tsu

I say ARREST those dastardly tadpoles and toss 'em into the tadpole slammer!!!! Wrap 'em up with Coban so they can't grow their little legs and escape to continue on their delinquent path of crime and evil.

russ_watters

Thats not how I read it, but you may be right.

ranyart

If anyone seen the Simpson episode featuring S W Hawking, then you should remember that stephen has an inbuilt security devise built into his chair, I believe it was a type of Boxing Glove at an end of a concertina/scissor extendable arm?

This being a prototype is plauged with teething problems, it sometimes Gets Stephen on the rebound!..Thus may be self-inflicted due to Stephen having a cold, and during a sneezing episode, wrong instructions were activated, hence the Prof got 'decked' by the fact that during a sneezing bout( as everyone knows, your Eyes atomatically shut!),,and caught one when he was not looking! [g)]

But this may also be need veryifying, this is correct?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/c...re/3414473.stm

LURCH

And "Munchausen by Proxy" is usually perpetrated by someone close to the victim. I'm afraid this is going to lead the police to suspect the wife first, and then the children.

I hope you're right, Ivan; I hope the whole thing is just the hoax.

jimmy p

i think it is just a misinterpretation and the press jumped at the story and coincidence that steven hawking is 62 years old.

The police said they had a report of an attack on a 62 year old man but no-one ever said that it was hawking. People injure themselves everyday, maybe his nurse was a little careless and gave him shaving cuts, i dunno!

wasteofo2

When I said Hawking could talk, I meant that he could communicate.

Evo

Hawking says the news story was FALSE! Ranyart posted a BBC press release on here earlier today from Hawking saying it wasn't true.

Seems nobody here could swallow the story, Wasteof2 questioned everything about it.

edit...and Chompnik, very clever deduction!