Last night I watched “Hawking”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395571/ on Hallmark Channel. It was released in 2004, but I have never heard of it until now, not surprising for a british film in Bangkok.

People will see this and think of “A Beautiful Mind.”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/ Hawking and Nash were both prodigy in their field, but to me that’s where the similarity ends. Nash’s mind was hardly beautiful, and his achievements were driven in a large part by his pursuit of glory. For Hawking, it was the excitement of understanding, and the beauty of structures that inspire.

And the cinematography and scores had done well to portrait this frail man whose inside burns with love of physics and one women. The part I like most is when it finally struck him that singularity and big bang can be the same thing. The young hawking jumped off a train and, on the platform’s ground, drew diagrams showing the idea to his friend Roger Penrose. When he finished writing the results up, he walk out of his Cambridge hall a triumphant man. It’s the feeling of achieving something important that grip me.

Talking about Penrose, he’s one very cool person. (And he still is the last time I caught a glimpse of him in Oxford in 2000.) Other notable physicists in the story are Sir Fred Hoyle and Penzias & Wilson. Thought I like how they tied in the CBR(Cosmic Background Radiation) right from the beginning, unveiling it bit by bit, I’m not sure the general audience will share the same idea. It’s quite confusing if you don’t know why the story always jump to this german guy giving TV interview.

In conclusion, (as a good physicist should always make) it’s a good movie. I recommend it.