Stephen Hawking — "I wouldn't compare it to sex, but it lasts longer."
I wouldn't compare it to sex, but it lasts longer.
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About Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)
British theoretical physicist whose Hawking radiation work and A Brief History of Time (1988) brought black-hole physics to a mass audience while he lived with ALS for 55 years. Closely associated with Roger Penrose (his collaborator on singularity theorems) and Carl Sagan (fellow popularizer who wrote Brief History's foreword). For an intellectual contrast, see William Lane Craig, American philosopher of religion — Craig's Kalam cosmological argument depends on the Big Bang requiring a divine first cause; Hawking's no-boundary proposal was specifically designed to remove the moment that would require one — the cleanest cosmology-vs-natural-theology contrast in modern thought.
Details
On the joy of making scientific discoveries, quoted in Entrepreneur and San Francisco Chronicle
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Hawking is humorously comparing the lasting satisfaction of intellectual discovery or scientific insight to sexual pleasure, suggesting that the euphoria of understanding something profound — a breakthrough moment in physics or mathematics — outlasts physical gratification. It's a witty, irreverent observation about where he found his deepest and most enduring pleasure: in the life of the mind rather than the body.
Relevance to Stephen Hawking
Diagnosed with ALS at 21 and given two years to live, Hawking spent decades unable to move or speak unaided, yet produced groundbreaking work on black holes and cosmology. Physical experience was severely limited for most of his adult life, making intellectual discovery his primary source of profound joy. This quip reflects his famous dark humor and his authentic experience: the mind truly was his refuge and his greatest pleasure.
The era
Hawking made this remark during an era — roughly the 1980s–2000s — when popular science was booming and physicists like Hawking, Feynman, and Sagan became cultural celebrities. Public appetite for accessible science exploded alongside the sexual revolution's lingering cultural openness, making such a frank, funny comparison land perfectly. It also coincided with his own celebrity peak following A Brief History of Time's 1988 publication.
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