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LONDON, England (CNN) -- Scientist and author Stephen Hawking is "very ill" and has been hospitalized, according to Cambridge University, where he is a professor
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science...lth/index.html
When asked later to name a teacher who had inspired him, Hawking named his Mathematics teacher, Mr Tahta (Dikran Tahta).
Dikran Tahta comes from a family of survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire who settled in Manchester after the First World War. Much of his childhood, and the influence of his Armenian religious upbringing is reflected upon in his penultimate book Ararat Associations, in which he notes how his parents were keen for their children to have an English education, yet made sure that they spoke Armenian at home. He was christened by Bishop Tourian in the Armenian Church in Manchester, and his name Dikran was shortened to the diminutive D!ck (Sorry aperson
), but he never forgot his Armenian roots.
Some of these are reflected on in his book Ararat Associations, where he remembers "my father, who would be standing, like the other males, with open arms extended in their own way of praying. Kneeling was for women and children".
From Rossall School, in Fleetwood, Lancashire, he gained a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1946. His main subject was Mathematics, but he also read widely in English literature, philosophy and history.
Between leaving university and just before national service, he took time out to catalogue the library of the late Bishop Indjian (died 1950), and read a number of his books on Turkish history for the first time.
Tahta did national service in the RAF from 1950 to 1952, then after a brief foray into journalism, returned to Rossall School in 1954, where he began teaching English and History, but gradually moved into mathematics teaching.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science...lth/index.html
When asked later to name a teacher who had inspired him, Hawking named his Mathematics teacher, Mr Tahta (Dikran Tahta).
Dikran Tahta comes from a family of survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire who settled in Manchester after the First World War. Much of his childhood, and the influence of his Armenian religious upbringing is reflected upon in his penultimate book Ararat Associations, in which he notes how his parents were keen for their children to have an English education, yet made sure that they spoke Armenian at home. He was christened by Bishop Tourian in the Armenian Church in Manchester, and his name Dikran was shortened to the diminutive D!ck (Sorry aperson
), but he never forgot his Armenian roots.Some of these are reflected on in his book Ararat Associations, where he remembers "my father, who would be standing, like the other males, with open arms extended in their own way of praying. Kneeling was for women and children".
From Rossall School, in Fleetwood, Lancashire, he gained a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1946. His main subject was Mathematics, but he also read widely in English literature, philosophy and history.
Between leaving university and just before national service, he took time out to catalogue the library of the late Bishop Indjian (died 1950), and read a number of his books on Turkish history for the first time.
Tahta did national service in the RAF from 1950 to 1952, then after a brief foray into journalism, returned to Rossall School in 1954, where he began teaching English and History, but gradually moved into mathematics teaching.
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