stephen hawking time travel party invitation card

That Time Stephen Hawking Threw a Champagne Party for Time Travelers

words: Nick Hines

photo: Into The Universe

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking likes two things: simple experiments and Champagne .  In that spirit, he combined these pleasures to challenge one of humanity’s age old questions: will humans ever be able to time travel? And if they ever figure it out, would they show up for some free bubbly?

To test those theories, Hawking threw a Champagne-filled party in 2009 for time travelers interested in boozing it up, complete with Krug and hors d’oeuvres. But to ensure only real-deal decade-hoppers would attend, he didn’t release the invitations until after the party had taken place. If people had shown up, he hypothesized, it would be proof that time travel is real. The eventual lack of party-goers could be seen as supporting evidence that time travel isn’t possible — well, probably isn’t possible.

“I sat there a long time, but no one came,” Hawking said in a statement following the quiet affair. Footage from the party was included in his documentary “Into the Universe,” which showed balloons scattered around the room and around 10 bottles of Krug poured into a pyramid of Champagne flutes. Small plates were served alongside the drinks, all of which remained untouched. To be fair, the invitation didn’t say there was going to be Krug . Maybe someone would have made the multidimensional journey if it had.

“You are cordially invited to a reception for time travelers hosted by Professor Stephen Hawking,” the invite read. “To be held in the past, at the University of Cambridge Gonville & Caius College, Trinity Street, Cambridge.” It also added the latitude and longitude, the date of June 28, 2009, and the very necessary disclaimer: “No RSVP required.”

As to why no one showed up to finish the snacks and sparkling, it could simply be because time travel hasn’t been cracked by us or our descendants. (If you’re a fan of Starz’ time-bending drama “Outlander” or Christopher Nolar’s space epic “Interstellar,” you may be open to the possibility it may, in fact, happen one day.) But entertainment and science blog Giant Freakin Robot came up with a few alternative reasons no one attended Hawking’s experimental event, even if humans could visit the past or future at will, and we’re compelled to say they’re somewhat convincing: the party took place on a different reality timeline, the invitations didn’t survive long enough for anyone centuries later to see, “time travelers are dicks,” time travelers don’t have control of their ability to travel, or, most ominously, Hawking killed them all “to preserve the time-space continuum.”

Offing a room full of Champagne-drunk time travelers without being discovered would be quite the feat for anyone — and a questionable moral choice — but it would have been all in the name of science if Hawking was behind it.

The famed theoretical physicist and cosmologist, who passed away in 2018, is known for having one of the most brilliant scientific minds in human history. His 1988 magnum opus, “A Brief History of Time,” details his life’s work studying the big bang, black holes, and other cosmic quandaries. The scientist, whose life and marriage was dramatized in 2014’s Academy Award-winning drama “The Theory of Everything,” was known for having quite the sense of humor —so this space-time-bending rager wasn’t an entirely surprising stunt. Perhaps he just roasted any interdimensional guests that did dip into the Krug so hard that they hopped back to their own year of origin before last call. We couldn’t blame them if they did. 

So, what really happened at the now-famous soirée that’s come to be known as the Stephen Hawking Time Travel Party? We may never know. (Or do we somehow know already?) As Hawking put it, “What a shame.”

Published: May 15, 2017

• That Time Stephen Hawking Threw a Champagne Party for Time Travelers | VinePair
• https://vinepair.com/articles/stephen-hawking-time-travel-party/
• wbs_cat Wine, wbs_type Champagne, wbs_brand Krug, champagne, history, Tipsy History, Wine
• We Asked 10 Somms: Which Wines Are a Safe Bet to Order? | VinePair
• https://vinepair.com/articles/we-asked-10-somms-which-wines-are-generally-a-safe-bet-to-order/
• Vicki Denig
• advice_etiquette
• wbs_cat Wine, wbs_type Cabernet Sauvignon, wbs_type Chablis, wbs_type Champagne, wbs_type Chardonnay, wbs_type Etna Rosso, wbs_type Malbec, wbs_type Pinot Noir, wbs_type Sauvignon Blanc, advice, Sommelier, Wine

Old News, Vintage News, Historical News, Retro News

Stephen hawking’s best practical joke was hosting a party for time-travelers.

Never let it be said that Stephen Hawking was without a sense of humor. The Cambridge University professor, convention-exploding thinker, and best-selling author, who outlived a devastating ALS prognosis, was a complex genius who democratized science for interested masses.

And he had his fun making a point: Hawking joked about hosting a time-travel party for a bunch of people who never showed.

“I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible,” Hawking told a room full of reporters at the Seattle Science Festival in 2012, in answer to a question about the possibility of time travel. “I gave a party for time-travelers, but I didn’t send out the invitations until after the party. I sat there a long time, but no one came.”

Stephen William Hawking was born in Oxford in 1942 to a family of eccentric doctors, philosophers, and mathematicians. His family lived in a run-down house, ate silent meals with each reading a book, and got around town in a decommissioned taxi cab.

Hawking was a graduate student when he was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 1963, and initially given only a few years to live.

He suffered depression, and ALS eventually reduced him to being able only to move one finger and his eyes. And yet he went on to become a generation’s thought leader on gravity, quantum mechanics, and black holes.

Hawking’s best selling book, A Brief History of Time , published in 1988, has sold 10 million copies. A biopic of his life, A Theory of Everything , released in 2014, starred Eddie Redmayne as Hawking, for which Redmayne won an Academy Award for Best Actor.

“What would it take to make time travel a reality, and how would that affect the present reality?” a reporter asked Hawking at the 2012 Science Festival.

Hawking’s full answer, as reported by Ars Technica:

“We are all traveling forward in time anyway. We can fast forward by going off in a rocket at high speed and return to find everyone on Earth much older or dead. Einstein’s general theory of relativity seems to offer the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that we could travel back in time.

“However, it is likely that warping would trigger a bolt of radiation that would destroy the spaceship and maybe the space-time itself. I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible. I gave a party for time-travelers, but I didn’t send out the invitations until after the party. I sat there a long time, but no one came.”

Hawking wasn’t (entirely) joking about his party, either. In June 2009, he “hosted” a party, filmed by the Discovery Channel.

Servers popped champagne corks and poured bubbly into flutes; a sign hung over the door saying WELCOME TIME TRAVELLERS. The camera panned to a grandfather clock ticking slowly toward 5 o’clock.

An invitation read, “You are cordially invited to a reception for Time Travellers, Hosted by Professor Stephen Hawking. To be held at The University of Cambridge.”

Of course, the invitation gave an address: 52° 12’ 21’’ N, 0° 7’ 4.7” E and a time of 12:00 UT on 6/28/2009. No RSVP was required. The two-minute video shows Hawking in a bespoke suit, sitting in silence, awaiting his no-show guests. The world’s leading cosmologist never breaks character.

Naturally, since this was a party for people traveling back in time, Hawking didn’t send out the invitations until after the party date. And still, no one showed.

Hawking never tired of translating complex theoretical equations into understandable concepts for laypeople, which made him one of the most revered, and approachable, intellectuals of the century.

Related story from us: Stephen Hawking was born exactly 300 years after the death of Galileo and died on Einstein’s birthday

“You can ask what will happen to someone who jumps into a black hole, I certainly don’t think he will survive it,” Hawking said in 1978, as recounted in his New York Times obituary. “On the other hand, if we send someone off to jump into a black hole, neither he nor his constituent atoms will come back, but his mass-energy will come back. Maybe that applies to the whole universe.”

Hawking died at his Cambridge home on March 14, 2018. He was 76.

E.L. Hamilton   has written about pop culture for a variety of magazines and newspapers, including Rolling Stone, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan, the New York Post and the New York Daily News. She lives in central New Jersey, just west of New York City

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What Happened When Stephen Hawking Threw a Cocktail Party for Time Travelers (2009)

in Physics , Science | March 26th, 2018 1 Comment

Who among us has nev­er fan­ta­sized about trav­el­ing through time? But then, who among us has­n’t trav­eled through time? Every sin­gle one of us is a time trav­el­er, tech­ni­cal­ly speak­ing, mov­ing as we do through one sec­ond per sec­ond, one hour per hour, one day per day. Though I nev­er per­son­al­ly heard the late Stephen Hawk­ing point out that fact, I feel almost cer­tain that he did, espe­cial­ly in light of one par­tic­u­lar piece of sci­en­tif­ic per­for­mance art he pulled off in 2009: throw­ing a cock­tail par­ty for time trav­el­ers — the prop­er kind, who come from the future.

“Hawking’s par­ty was actu­al­ly an exper­i­ment on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of time trav­el,” writes Atlas Obscu­ra’s Anne Ewbank . “Along with many physi­cists, Hawk­ing had mused about whether going for­ward and back in time was pos­si­ble. And what time trav­el­er could resist sip­ping cham­pagne with Stephen Hawk­ing him­self?” ”

By pub­lish­ing the par­ty invi­ta­tion in his mini-series  Into the Uni­verse With Stephen Hawk­ing , Hawk­ing hoped to lure futur­is­tic time trav­el­ers.  You are cor­dial­ly invit­ed to a recep­tion for Time Trav­ellers,  the invi­ta­tion read, along with the the date, time, and coor­di­nates for the event. The the­o­ry, Hawk­ing explained, was that only some­one from the future would be able to attend.”

Alas, no time trav­el­ers turned up. Since some­one pos­sessed of that tech­nol­o­gy at any point in the future would the­o­ret­i­cal­ly be able to attend, does Hawk­ing’s lone­ly par­ty, which you can see in the clip above , prove that time trav­el will nev­er become pos­si­ble? Maybe — or maybe the poten­tial time-trav­el­ers of the future know some­thing about the space-time-con­tin­u­um-threat­en­ing risks of the prac­tice that we don’t. As for Dr. Hawk­ing, I have to imag­ine that he came away sat­is­fied from the shindig, even though his hoped-for Ms. Uni­verse from the future nev­er walked through the door. “I like sim­ple exper­i­ments… and cham­pagne,” he said, and this cham­pagne-laden sim­ple exper­i­ment will con­tin­ue to remind the rest of us to enjoy our time on Earth, wher­ev­er in that time we may find our­selves.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Stephen Hawking’s Inter­view with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Record­ed 10 Days Before His Death: A Last Con­ver­sa­tion about Black Holes, Time Trav­el & More

Stephen Hawk­ing (RIP) Explains His Rev­o­lu­tion­ary The­o­ry of Black Holes with the Help of Chalk­board Ani­ma­tions

The Lighter Side of Stephen Hawk­ing: The Physi­cist Cracks Jokes and a Smile with John Oliv­er

Pro­fes­sor Ronald Mal­lett Wants to Build a Time Machine in this Cen­tu­ry … and He’s Not Kid­ding

What’s the Ori­gin of Time Trav­el Fic­tion?: New Video Essay Explains How Time Trav­el Writ­ing Got Its Start with Charles Dar­win & His Lit­er­ary Peers

Based in Seoul,  Col­in Mar­shall  writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. His projects include the book  The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les  and the video series  The City in Cin­e­ma . Fol­low him on Twit­ter at  @colinmarshall  or on  Face­boo k .

by Colin Marshall | Permalink | Comments (1) |

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Comments (1), 1 comment so far.

Hawk­ing had count­less famous phras­es and say­ing, here we offer you a short selec­tion of Stephen Hawk­ing quotes.

https://everydayscience.blog/stephen-hawking-quotes/

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Stephen Hawking hosted a party for time travelers, but no one came

In 2009, Stephen Hawking ran an experiment that required champagne, balloons, and hors d'oeuvres, to demonstrate that backward time travel probably isn't possible.

It was a time travelers' party — but no one showed. And that was the point.

"I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible," Hawking told reporters at the Seattle Science Festival in 2012. "I gave a party for time-travelers, but I didn't send out the invitations until after the party. I sat there a long time, but no one came."

SEE ALSO: NASA's tribute to Stephen Hawking will make you smile like he did in microgravity

The Discovery Channel captured the event on video, which showed Hawking dressed up and waiting for time travelers to arrive at on June 28, 2009 at a specific location at the University of Cambridge. Hawking provided precise GPS coordinates, should there have been any confusion, or if anyone got lost while speeding through time and space. 

Hawking didn't send out any of the invitations until after the reception had passed, which was a critical component of the experimental design: Only those who could travel back in time would thus be able to attend. 

Image: Pete Souza - White House Photostream

"You are cordially invited to a reception for Time Travelers," the invitation read. 

"I am hoping copies of it, in one form or another, will survive for many thousands of years. Maybe one day someone living in the future will find the information and use a wormhole time machine to come back to my party, proving that time travel will one day be possible."

Critics of this experimental design might argue that perhaps people in the future were able to build a time machine, and they just failed to know about Hawking's party. This is plausible, but perhaps unlikely, as anyone researching how to travel backwards through time and space would almost certainly be familiar with the famed theories developed by Hawking. Hawking's bestselling book, A Brief History of Time , has sold more than 10 million copies. 

Like any reasonable scientist, Hawking didn't contend that his experiment constituted incontrovertible proof that time travel can't one day be possible. At the festival in Seattle, Hawking noted that fellow theorist Albert Einstein "seems to offer the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that we could travel back in time."

But Hawking cited one of his many disagreements with this idea.

"However, it is likely that warping would trigger a bolt of radiation that would destroy the spaceship and maybe the space-time itself," he said. 

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The Time Stephen Hawking Held A Party Only For Time Travellers

Is it possible to travel to the past? Well, according to Stephen Hawking, time travel is effectively impossible. And to support his opinion, in 2009 the world famous physicist held a party only for time travellers. The result? Nobody showed up.

Here’s the interesting story.

On June 28, 2009 Stephen Hawking held a party at the University of Cambridge. The party was complete with champagne, hors d’oeuvres and balloons but, even though (literally) everyone was invited, no one showed up. Why? Because, Hawking only sent out invitations after the party had concluded.  It was his way to further reinforce his 1992 conjecture that time travel is not possible: (the article continues after the ad)

“I have experimental evidence that time travel is not possible. I gave a party for time-travellers, but I didn’t send out the invitations until after the party. I sat there a long time, but no one came.”

as Hawking said.

Here’s the invitation:

Oh, here’s the official YouTube of the “event”:

The big question remains though: What if someone in the future retroactively decide to visit the party? 🙂

If you like what you read, then you will definitely love this one:  Marie Curie’s Notebooks Will Stay Radioactive For Another 1,500 Year

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Stephen Hawking's Time Travel Party – Did it Happen? How Would We Know?

H ey everyone, Stephen Hawking is throwing a party, and we're all invited! One catch: Stephen Hawking is dead, and the party was in 2009. Still, the invitation stands.

What if you threw a party and nobody came, but that's exactly what you expected? That's precisely what famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking did on June 28, 2009. He rented a space at Cambridge University and got balloons, decorations, and, of course, the champagne. Then he sat in the empty room for a few hours and left. 

Only  then  did he send out the invitation.

(Credit:spatuletail/Shutterstock)

Stephen Hawking's Time Travel Party

Stephen Hawking's time travel party was held for our future descendants should they ever crack the mystery of time travel, one of the biggest puzzles faced by modern physics.

Hawking was actually experimenting. The thing is, our current knowledge of physics does not strictly forbid time travel. 

The Science Behind Time Travel

Indeed, in some cases, it's explicitly allowed. Take the general theory of relativity , for example. This theory provides our modern understanding of gravity as the bending and curving of space and time in response to the presence of matter and energy, with that curving dictating the motion of matter.

General Relativity and Time Travel Examples

General relativity provides several scenarios that enable time travel into the past; it's just a matter of finding the right curvature of spacetime where you are always traveling forwards but end up in your own past, a structure known as a closed  timelike curve  (the "timelike" is jargon talk for always traveling slower than the speed of light). 

One scenario is an infinitely long cylinder, which rotates fast enough to allow you to travel a corkscrew path around it and end up in the past. Another is the creation of a  wormhole  where the ends are not synchronized to the same time, allowing you to travel down one end and exit into the past.

The Challenges of Practical Time Travel

But there are no infinitely long cylinders in the universe, and wormholes require the presence of exotic matter with negative mass to stabilize themselves, and negative mass doesn't seem to exist.

These are just two examples; every time we try to concoct a permissible time travel setup in general relativity, we find some random rule of the universe preventing us from realizing it. And yet, no hard and fast rule outright forbids time travel, so we're a bit stuck.

Hawking's Views on Future Time Travel

Hawking, like many other physicists, believed that a resolution to the dilemma would come in the form of an advanced theory of gravity, one we currently do not yet know.

And so if time travel is possible, then our descendants will one day figure it out, and they can read about the invitation to Hawking's party in the historical records and go visit him. 

Read More: What Is the Grandfather Paradox of Time Travel?

Possible Outcomes of Hawking's Time Travel Party

Since nobody showed up to Stephen Hawking's time travel party, we have a few possible conclusions: 

1. Time travel into the past is not allowed. Our future descendants will realize a deeper understanding of the laws of physics and, in that deeper understanding, discover the fundamental reason why time travel into the past is forbidden. They will read about Hawking's invitation and sigh regretfully that they could not make it. 

2. Time travel into the past is allowed, but we only figure it out so far into the future that Hawking's invitation is lost in the historical record. Who knows, maybe some ancient Sumerian philosopher also hosted a time travelers' party thousands of years ago, writing down the invitation on clay tablets spread throughout the land, but none of them survived to the present day. 

3. Time travel into the past is allowed, but we never figure it out. Maybe humanity destroys itself, armed with an advanced understanding of nature. Maybe our human intellect isn't quite powerful enough to discern the deeper mysteries of the universe. Maybe we go on to other intellectual pursuits and never bother taking a deeper look.

4. Time travel into the past is allowed, but there are rules. Maybe it's exceptionally complicated or energy-intensive to build a time machine, and we can send fleeting signals into the past, but not entire persons. Or maybe you can only travel as far back as the creation of the time machine, and you cannot access earlier epochs.

As experiments go, Hawking's party wasn't a total failure. If someone from the future had shown up, it would've been a rather big deal. But even failed experiments can teach us many things. In this case, the mystery of time travel will likely remain unsolved for quite some…time.

(Credit:Claudio Caridi/Getty Images)

Read More:  Is There a Particle That Can Travel Back in Time?

2013 invitation to stephen hawking's time travelers party in 2009

in 28 june 2009, late professor stephen hawking held a reception at the university of cambridge, attended by no one but himself. it may had something to do with the fact that the invitations were only printed and shared four years later, but even so, the gathering was only open to time travelers, disappointingly proving that traveling through time was not possible.

now, christie’s offers a chance to future time travelers to prove otherwise as it’s currently auctioning one of the only five artist’s proofs printed in 2013 at new north press, london.

all images courtesy of  christie’s

‘I’m hoping copies of it in one form or another will survive for many thousands of years. maybe one day someone living in the future will find the information and use a wormhole time machine to come back to my party, proving that time travel will, one day, be possible,’ said stephen hawking of the invitation, which later inspired his family to also invite time travellers to his memorial service .  the print is being auctioned together with a number of other items from the professor’s estate, among which his alpha industries bomber jacket, a first american edition of his book  a brief history of time signed with his thumbprint, one of his favorite portraits of himself, and several papers.

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Stephen Hawking's Time Travellers Invitation: Open Edition

£49.00

Created by Peter Dean with the approval of world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, this poster is part of a real time-travel experiment. Professor Hawking

• Description

Join Stephen Hawking for his Time Travellers' Reception with the invitation that the Professor hopes "will be around for many thousands of years". Be part of a real time travel experiment with this poster created in collaboration with world-renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking.

This is an ingenious experiment devised by Professor Stephen Hawking, to prove whether time travel to the past is possible. By holding a reception for time travellers and not publicising it until after it happened, he hoped that future time travellers would one day see it and journey back to attend. The success of this experiment depends entirely on the invitation poster existing in the future for time travellers to find it.

This stunning screen-printed poster is available in two colours, smoke (grey) and bright citrine (yellow/orange). It was created from the letterpress-printed version we created — proudly displayed in Stephen Hawking’s home and office – which is now part of the permanent collection of the UK's prestigious Science Museum.

With permission of the Estate of Stephen Hawking. And 10% of the purchase price of every print sold goes to the Stephen Hawking Foundation. 

As seen on TV! This print featured on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

This print features on a Royal Mail stamp offering

Screen print, in either white or black ink.

The overall dimensions of the print are 14" x 18" (35.6cm x 45.7cm).

The poster is printed on 135gsm Colorplan paper (either "Smoke" or "Citrine").

Poster Text

You are cordially invited to A RECEPTION FOR TIME TRAVELLERS Hosted by PROFESSOR STEPHEN HAWKING To be held in the past, at THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE Gonville & Caius College, Trinity Street, Cambridge Location: 52˚ 12' 21" N, 0˚ 7' 4.7" E 12:00 UT 28 JUNE 2009 NO RSVP REQUIRED

Please select one of the 'Framed' options above.

Prints are framed professionally, to order, by a Guild Commended Framer using archival-quality materials and usually ship within 7 working days.

Frames are wooden with a black finish and are sealed on the back to prevent dust from entering. D-ring attachments and hanging cord are also fitted, so the print will arrive ready to hang. A card is also attached to the rear of the frame containing information about the print and Professor Hawking's experiment.

High-quality, optically-clear acrylic is used in place of glass for all shipped orders. It is visibly identical and should not be cleaned or polished with abrasives.

We package framed prints carefully to protect them from damage during shipping.

The overall dimensions of the non-mount/mat frame are: Width = 390mm, Height = 496mm, Depth = 23mm. The frame itself is 23mm wide all around.

The overall dimensions of the frame with mount/mat are: Width = 440mm, Height = 582mm, Depth = 23mm. The frame itself is 23mm wide all around.

• We take great care with packaging to help ensure that your print reaches you in excellent condition. Prints are wrapped in acid-free tissue paper and shipped in large-diameter, thick-walled tubes with secured end caps. We ship worldwide, and regularly send orders to the US, Canada and Australia. Depending on the destination, orders for multiple prints may arrive in multiple packages. UK orders are usually delivered within two working days after dispatch. International orders are normally delivered within 5–10 working days after dispatch. Customers in the EU may have to pay a small amount of import duty to receive packages sent from the UK.

"I'm hoping copies of it in one form or another will survive for many thousands of years. Maybe one day someone living in the future will find the information and use a wormhole time machine to come back to my party, proving that time travel will, one day, be possible." Stephen Hawking

As seen on TV! Our Time Travellers Invitation Poster features on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

It was a great surprise for us to discover that one of our Stephen Hawking Time Travellers invitation prints was seen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

It featured during an interview with Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård (who plays Tarzan in the 2016 movie) who apparently once snuck into the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York pretending to be a roadie – and had his photo taken with Colbert. Our print is up on the wall there and crept into this shot. The citrine colour steals the limelight nicely!

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Stephen Hawking Auction: Bid on an Invitation to a Party for Time Travelers

By Jacey Fortin

• Oct. 23, 2018

In 2009, the physicist and author Stephen W. Hawking gave a party for time travelers.

Invitations were not made public until after the event. They were meant to last long enough to reach future humans who might develop the opportunity to time-travel back to the party. Perhaps they didn’t — or won’t — work: Video footage from the party showed Dr. Hawking surrounded by champagne, snacks and balloons, sitting all alone.

Now, you can buy one of those invitations , or at least make an offer. It is one of nearly two dozen items from the estate of Dr. Hawking, who died in March at age 76, that will go up for auction next week.

Starting Oct. 31, they will be for sale as part of a Christie’s online auction featuring items that belonged to Dr. Hawking and three other famous scientists: Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein.

[ Sign up to get reminders for space and astronomy events on your calendar .]

Most of the lots are what you might expect from renowned physicists and biologists: scientific papers, friendly correspondences and portraits. But Dr. Hawking, the most contemporary of the bunch, also left behind some more personal items including a black bomber jacket , the script from an episode of The Simpsons on which he appeared, and a red, motorized leather-backed wheelchair that he used in the 1980s and 90s.

Dr. Hawking, who spent most of his life steadily losing control over his muscles because of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, had to stop using the red wheelchair after he lost the ability to steer it with his hands. Its estimated price at auction is between $12,600 and $18,900.

Proceeds from the sale of the wheelchair will benefit the Stephen Hawking Foundation and the Motor Neurone Disease Association , Dr. Hawking’s daughter, Lucy Hawking, said in a statement. Proceeds from his other lots will go to his estate.

Ms. Hawking described the items as a “unique and precious collection of personal and professional belongings,” spanning her father’s life and work.

One of the highlights of the auction will be Dr. Hawking’s Ph.D. thesis , composed in 1965 and typed by his wife, Jane Wilde Hawking. Called “Properties of expanding universes,” it is about the origins of time and space as we know it.

The dissertation was signed twice by its author. Another item, a 1988 copy of his best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time,” is marked with his thumbprint as a signature.

“It has been a huge privilege for Christie’s to work on this selection of objects from the estate of one of the most brilliant minds of the last half-century,” Thomas Venning, the head of the Books and Manuscripts department at Christie’s London, said in a statement. “The lots selected for sale highlight Professor Hawking’s remarkable achievements in science alongside his unique personality and inspirational life story.”

The 52 lots also include a letter defending Darwin’s ideas about evolution, a manuscript capturing Newton’s fascination with alchemy and a book explaining Einstein’s understanding of relativity.

Some items are a little more quotidian: a loan repayment document from Newton, a letter from Darwin declining an invitation because he felt ill, and an R.S.V.P. from Einstein joking that he would be happy to attend a lunch but might not eat much because he was on a diet.

The online auction, which is titled “On the Shoulders of Giants,” will last until Nov. 8.