I have also given many scientific and popular talks …I think that this is in a large part due to the quality of the speech synthesiser. This system allowed me to communicate much better than I could before …Using this system, I have written a book, and dozens of scientific papers. Thus, technology gave a voice to Hawking, who would have otherwise suffered from locked-in syndrome, a disorder in which a person is trapped within their body without being able to express their self. In fact, Hawking became so attached to Klatt’s voice that he considered it a part of his identity – upon being offered newer versions, such as the Speech Plus synthesiser in 1988, he preferred to continue with Klatt’s. One of these voices was Klatt himself, known as “Perfect Paul”, and became famous as the voice of Professor Stephen Hawking. This was widely used by those with disabilities, particularly people with low vision who used this system to read aloud computer text. Klatt also contributed to the development of the text-to-text speech system known as the “KlattTalk” TTS (text-to-speech) system. For example, his formant synthesis software, published in the Journal of Acoustical Society of America in 1980, is still used today by scientists concerned with the study of synthesising speech sounds. A speech synthesis pioneer, Klatt made several advances in the generation of high-quality human speech by machine. This was when the work of American scientist Dennis Klatt came in. It is pretty difficult to carry on a conversation like that, let alone write a scientific paper. Following an emergency tracheotomy in 1985, Hawking completely lost the ability to speak, which he described in his biography:įor a time, the only way I could communicate was to spell out words letter by letter, by raising my eyebrows when someone pointed to the right letter on a spelling card. It is well known that Hawking was diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease – also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease of the nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain that are responsible for voluntary movement – in his twenties. However, it was Hawking’s image and voice that caught the public imagination as a true symbol of the triumph of mind over matter. Considered the most famous theoretical physicist of his generation, Hawking greatly advanced our understanding of black holes, predicting their ability to emit thermal radiation (now known as Hawking radiation). His synthetic voice became famous, and he later refused offers to ‘humanise’ it.In his later years, Stephen Hawking’s voice became as famous as his ground-breaking theories on quantum gravity, black holes, and theoretical cosmology. With practice, Hawking was able to say about 20 words per minute (most people reach about 150). The synthesiser hardware was adapted into a portable system hanging on his wheelchair. Shortly after, he began to try a voice synthesiser and software that allowed him to select letters or preprogrammed words and phrases. In 1985 Hawking completely lost his voice after emergency windpipe surgery. In 2021, this system, which was previously on loan, became part of the newly allocated collection of Stephen Hawking's Office. Stephen was proud to mention that his voice was in the Science Museum. Once Intel started providing his computers, these were replaced every two years.Īfter using his first communication system for more than a decade, Hawking gave it on loan to the Science Museum in 1999, where it has been on display in different exhibitions. Not all of Stephen's communication systems were updated at the same time. The computer itself is more modern than other parts of this system, dating from around 1997. This is part of Stephen Hawking's first synthesizer system. Part of communication equipment built for Stephen Hawking to allow speech and communication by computer with the Internet, made by Intel and others. Computer unit for interfacing Dr Hawking's voice synthesizer and computer.
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