Stephen Hawking’s Star Trek Cameo Has A Distinctive Distinction

Originally of the “Star Trek: The Subsequent Era” episode “Descent, Half I” (June 21, 1993), Knowledge (Brent Spiner) is spending some free time on the holodeck. He has organized a poker recreation with three of the best minds the scientific group has ever identified. Sir Isaac Newton (John Neville) is boastful and impatient. Albert Einstein (Jim Norton) is affable, however an aggravating poker participant, as he struggles with fundamental arithmetic. And, sitting throughout from Knowledge, making science jokes and poking enjoyable at Newton and Einstein, is Stephen Hawking, enjoying himself. 

Hawking will get the opening line of the episode, finishing an anecdote: “However then I mentioned, in that body of reference, the perihelion of Mercury would have precessed in the other way.” Einstein laughs, and Knowledge declares the story to be very amusing. Knowledge tries to clarify the joke to Newton, who wouldn’t have identified concerning the relativistic curvature of space-time. Newton brushes off Knowledge’s rationalization, saying he invented physics.

Simply as Hawking wins the poker match — he held 4 sevens — Knowledge is named to the bridge of the Enterprise for an emergency. Knowledge shuts off the holodeck, and the mental giants vanish. It was a short however memorable scene in “Star Trek” historical past. 

It additionally holds a curious distinction amongst “Star Trek” visitor stars. Stephen Hawking is the one particular person in “Star Trek” historical past to have performed himself. Again in 2018, the author of “Descent,” Ron D. Moore, talked with The Wrap about Hawking’s go to to the set, and the way each single author and crew member wished to be available to satisfy him. On “Star Trek,” writers have been hardly ever allowed on set. On this case, nonetheless, it appears a whole lot of exceptions have been fortunately made. 

Know that “Star Trek” usually tries to be fairly ginger about incorporating modern references. It has beforehand been written within the pages of /Movie that trendy pop music is usually eschewed on “Star Trek” due to its industrial dimension, and since the writers seemingly would not wish to presume sure pop acts would survive into the twenty fourth century. In terms of celebrities and the humanities, “Star Trek” has most well-liked to play it secure by solely making classical and historic references, which aren’t solely within the public area, however already such a deeply entrenched a part of Earth tradition, that it is secure to imagine their reminiscence would persist for a lot of further centuries. 

An exception, nonetheless, was made for Hawking, as his revolutionary concepts about astral physics reworked the scientific group in his lifetime. What’s extra, all of the science nerds and house nuts watching “Star Trek” would definitely squee seeing Hawking and Knowledge interacting. When Moore thought to put in writing Hawking into his script, it was simply permitted by the higher-ups at Paramount. Fortunately, Hawking was recreation sufficient to go to the “Star Trek” set and inform a joke concerning the perihelion of Mercury. 

Moore recalled that the precise filming required the same old digital camera operators, actors, et al, however that everybody else crammed the set, hoping to satisfy a hero. Moore mentioned:

“Solely the individuals concerned in filming the scene have been really allowed within the room. […] Everybody else was crammed out within the hallway peeking in. It was a very thrilling scene and one which had by no means been performed earlier than on ‘Star Trek.'”

It appears that evidently government producer Rick Berman in the end was in a position to contact Hawking due to a earlier set go to the famed physicist had made. Hawking’s quantity was already in Berman’s Rolodex. 

It appears that evidently again in 1991, Hawking visited the Paramount lot to introduce a screening of Errol Morris’ biographical documentary “A Transient Historical past of Time.” Rick Berman had discovered that Hawking was a Trekkie, and organized a mutually helpful geekout by inviting Hawking to the set. It was in the course of the go to that Berman discovered that Hawking would like to be a TV star. Hawking, after all, was a busy man — he was the Lucasian Professor of Arithmetic at Cambridge — so it could take a number of extra years in the beginning timed out accurately. As Moore recalled: 

“After that go to, we discovered that Hawking can be all for doing a cameo on the present, and there was a window of time when he was going to be again in Los Angeles, and I used to be going to put in writing the episode they have been going to movie throughout that window. […] So I bought the decision and so they instructed me, ‘We want you to put in writing a scene with Stephen Hawking,’ and I am like, ‘Wait, WHAT?!’ However they instructed me to do one thing on the holodeck, possibly with Knowledge.”

The ensuing scene opened “Descent,” the ultimate episode of the present’s sixth season. Moore was in a position to provide you with the situation, however he wasn’t well-versed sufficient in physics to put in writing an appropriately brainy science joke for Hawking. Moore admits that he reached out to fellow Trek author Naren Shankar, who had three levels and a deeper understanding of perihelia. Moore mentioned:

“Naren had a Ph.D. in utilized physics, so I introduced him in, and he was additionally tickled on the thought of writing strains for Stephen Hawking. So he was the one who got here up with the thought of the joke being that Stephen retains busting the chops of the opposite scientists and that Isaac Newton is a jerk and that Einstein and Stephen maintain bagging on him. As soon as we had that, the scene simply wrote itself.” 

All of it got here collectively swimmingly. Hawking was blissful, the makers of “Star Trek” have been blissful, and Trekkies have been blissful. Typically, nerd crossovers work out.