Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair and dissertation thesis sold for $1 million in online auction

(Photo Source: Wikimedia.org)

• Stephen Hawking’s motorised wheelchair and a copy of his dissertation were auctioned for $1 million
  
• Other items put up in sale were a collection of his medals and awards, essays, his book ‘A Brief History of Time’.
  
• The total revenue generated by the charity sale was four times than expected
  

A range of personal belongings of British physicist, Stephen Hawking, including his famous motorised red leather wheel chair and a copy of his dissertation thesis have been sold for $1 million in an auction.

The red motorised wheelchair once used by Hawking went under the stamp for $391.7 million while his Cambridge thesis titled “Properties of Expanding Universes” was sold for $7.6 million.

Hawking, famous for his theories about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes, died at the age of 76 in March 2018

The auction also included other items owned by Hawking such as a copy of his book “A Brief History of Time” with Hawking’s fingerprints, his Alpha Industries bomber jacket, a collection of medals and awards. All three were sold for an accumulated price of $52,93,72.

Other items included in Christie’s charity auction were handwritten documents from Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, an original production script for Hawking’s final appearance on “The Simpsons” and an invitation to the “Reception for Time Travellers.”

The auction run by Christie’s in London was a nine-day affair marketed under the name “On the Shoulders of Giants. ”The purpose of the sale was to raise money for Stephen Hawking’s Foundation and the Motor Neurone Disease Association.