My lunch with Stephen Hawking

I write this in remembrance of Stephen Hawking, two days after he passed away at 76 (decades after doctors told him he had only a few years to live). This is the tale of when I had the good fortune to meet and talk with him over lunch some 20 years ago…

It was May 1998, and Professor Hawking was visiting Silicon Valley. At the time, I was at Silicon Graphics, the company that had pioneered 3D computing, heading up marketing for an Internet software product line. Professor Hawking was in town to visit two specific companies, Silicon Graphics and Intel. He came to us because…