"I could confine myself to a nutshell and declare myself king of infinity" -- Hamlet's line sums up the scope of celebrated, wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking's lecture in Hangzhou, a city in east China's Zhejiang Province.
In his lecture at Zhejiang University on Thursday, the British physicist shared with the 3,000-strong audience his concept of a "brane world".
"Brane" is a new word which Hawking and his researchers created to describe the coating that the universe is living on.
Hawking, hailed as the world's greatest physicist after Newton and Albert Einstein, spoke through a voice mixer as an illness 17 years ago left him totally paralyzed except for three fingers.
A week before Hawking's lecture, 2,000 Zhejiang University students queued late at night in a bid to get an admission ticket. All the tickets went in five minutes.
After the lecture was moved from a lecture room to a stadium and more tickets were all available, 5,000 students queued again at five o'clock in the morning.
Hawking usually charges 50,000 pounds for a lecture fee but gave the lecture in the Chinese university totally for free.
"When I told him his trip to China could help raise awareness of the importance of basic science among Chinese youth, he was delighted to accept the invitation," recalled Qiu Chengtong (S.T. Yau), noted Chinese-American mathematician and Hawking's old friend for more than 20 years.
Hawking's A Brief History of Time has swept the world as the one of the most popular scientific works in history since it was first published 14 years ago. His trip to China was marked by the publishing of the Chinese version of another Hawking work --The Universe in a Nutshell.
"To an ordinary scientist, let alone one who is paralyzed, popularizing science is no easier than basic research", Qiu said.
The scientific storm sparked by Hawking has enthused the whole city, home to many of China's noted scientists and thinkers.
In Hangzhou, A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell have become best sellers in bookstores. The hottest topic in the city right now is Hawking and his team, who have attracted the gaze of local media.
The conclusion of the lecture at about one o'clock was greeted by five minutes of applause from the audience for the self-proclaimed "black holes explorer in my mind".
"He helps people from different cultures expand their scientific concepts and embrace science," said Pan Yunhe, president of Zhejiang University and also a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
"His lecture at Zhejiang University will have a lasting influence on our students and inspire them to seek the truth and be dedicated to science," Pan said.
Hawking is on his second tour of China and will attend the upcoming International Congress of Mathematicians 2002 in Beijing later this month. His first visit to China was in 1985.
(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2002)
