Stephen Hawking, Veterans Open London Paralympics

Stephen Hawking narrated the opening ceremony of the London Paralympics.

The 70 year-old Hawking, theoretical physicist, former Lucasian Professor at Cambridge, and author of A Brief History of Time, has motor neuron disease and had been paralyzed most of his life. Organizers of the 2012 Paralympic Games described him as “the most famous disabled person anywhere on the planet".

According to The Australian:

[Hawking] guided a central character on a journey of discovery in a story inspired by William Shakespeare's The Tempest, taking in the Big Bang theory on the creation of the universe about which he has written extensively, to the 18th-century Enlightenment period and scientific discoveries of the modern era.

A record 4200 athletes, including an unprecedented number of women, from 165 countries will compete for 503 medals in 20 sports in front of a near-sellout crowd for the first time in the Games' 52-year history.

Source: The Australian