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Fascinated by physics, Stephen concentrated in the subject at Oxford's University College, butdid not distinguish himself. He partied, took a great interest in rowing and studied only an hour or so a day. Moving on to Cambridge for graduate work in relativity, he found the going rough, party because of some puzzling physical problems; he stumbled frequently and seemed to be getting clumsy.
斯蒂芬酷爱物理，曾在牛津大学的大学学院专攻这一学科，但成绩并不突出。他参加各种社交聚会，对划船特别感兴趣，每天只学习一个小时左右。进入剑桥大学作研究生攻读相对论时，斯蒂芬发觉学习很吃力。造成这一情况的部分原因是他身体内出现的一些莫名其妙的症状；他常常绊倒，而且手脚也似乎越来越不灵活了。
Doctors soon gave him the bad news: he had ALS, it would only get worse, and there was no cure. Hawking was overwhelmed. Before long, he needed a cane to walk, was drinking heavily and ignoring his studies. "There didn't seem to be much point in completing my Ph. D.," he says.
很快，医生便向他报告了坏消息：他患了ALS症。这种病只会恶化，而没有办法治愈。霍金悲伤之至。不久，他便需要拄着拐杖才能行走；他开始酗酒，置学习于不顾。他说：“在当时的情况下，完成博士学业似乎已没有多大意义了。”
Then Hawking's luck turned. The progress of the disease slowed, and Einsteinian space-time suddenly seemed less formidable. But what really made the difference, he says, "was that I got engaged to Jane," who was studying modern languages at Cambridge. "This gave me something to liver for." As he explains, "if we were to get married, I had to get a job. And to get a job, I had to finish my Ph. D. I started, working hard for the first time in my life. To my surprise, I found I liked it."
后来，霍金时来运转。病情的发展慢了下来，而爱因斯坦的时空观也突然显得不那么令人生畏了。但真正对他产生了重大影响的，他说，“是我与简订了婚。”当时她正在剑桥大学攻读现代语言。“这使我有了一个生活目的。”正如他所解释的那样：“如果我们打算结婚，我就要找到一份工作。而要找到工作，我就得完成博士学位。于是我生平第一次开始刻苦学习了。出乎我的意料，我发觉我喜欢刻苦学习。”
What particularly interested Stephen was singularities, strange beasts predicted by general relativity. Einstein's equations indicated that when a star several times larger than the sun exhausts its nuclear fuel and collapses, its matter crushes together at its center with such force that it forms a singularity, an infinitely dense point with no dimensions and irresistible gravity. A voluminous region surrounding the singularity becomes a "black hole," from which --- because of that immense gravity --- nothing, not even light, can escape.
使斯蒂芬特别感兴趣的是奇点。这是广义相对论所预言的一种怪物。爱因斯坦的方程式表明，当一个比太阳大数倍的星体耗尽了自身的核燃料而坍塌时，它的物质便以雷霆万钧之力在其核心部位挤在一起，从而形成一个奇点，这一奇点没有维度，却具有无限的密度和不可抗拒的引力。奇点周围的广大区域便成了一个“黑洞”，而由于那巨大的引力，任何东西都不能逃离黑洞，即使光也不能。
