The Wyvern Theory

By Luke Canter – 5P

Thursday, April 23^rd – a slow morning, followed with hours upon hours of anticipation, slowly dangling above us, waiting to drop down one of the highlights of the day; an author talk by none other than Lucy Hawking. Who would’ve thought that Stephen Hawking had a daughter?

The excitement wasn’t without its casualties; perhaps a few missed music lessons and classes, but of course, that was almost nothing to everyone, for they were determined not to miss this exciting event. The hours went by, seconds ticking, and before we knew it, we were in the hall, listening to what would become an unforgettable, inspiring author speech, engraved in our minds for all eternity. We listened to the words eagerly, wanting not to miss out on such a tremendous opportunity for us all.

Of course, no author talk is complete without a witty riposte from a staff member or two. A clever remark was made, which will be with us for the rest of our lives as mental souvenirs, thanks to the silent laughs that erupted in the hall that day; one slide, showing an image of Cambridge, and Hawking asked us a brief question: “Who’s been to Cambridge”? Silently, without any prior notice, Mr. Holden put his hand up in response, on his face a slight smirk.

Moving aside from the comical aspect, we see how many concepts were introduced to us, through what exactly? The power of words – through which we were able to understand to a whole new level. Lucy Hawking, by way of explanation, is an author who rose to fame, and inevitably, too. Today we see entire schools educated through her ingenious descriptions. With our questions answered, our eyes were opened to even more facts, motivated further by discussion of space travel – we were surprised to hear that “the first man on Mars could be in the room”.

We were astonished at how many facts we’d learnt in one day; all through literature and one of the authors who used it to contribute to an unimaginably good cause; to spark the flame of learning within our minds, and to encourage us to add to our knowledge and eventually turn it into something immense and vast; but we could only ignite that flame by asking questions- and ask we did!

“Couldn’t we just launch one individual vessel with an essentially genetically altered crew?”

“What exactly is the Large Hadron Collider?”

“What exactly is dark matter?”

Time was limited, and so we had to depart from the author visit into our own black holes …

Lucy Hawking’s Author Talk

By Kieran Casey 6R

O n Thursday the 23rd of April, Years 3-6 had the privilege of listening to the author, Lucy Hawking. Lucy Hawking talked about her books, science and her father, Stephen Hawking. She was very inspirational and she is an amazing speaker. Wyvern boys could not take their eyes off her, they were so intrigued. She was awe inspiring. Lucy only spent a small portion of her time with us talking about the books she has written. Most of the time she was talking to us about the world of science.

It absolutely fascinated me that she could love science so much that she hardly bothered to talk about her books during the talk. She told us about how a soccer/football would work or not work on other planets. Lucy discussed nebulae, supernova and stars.

Lucy’s books include lots of realistic science. Her science is correct because Stephen Hawking co-authored her books. Lucy’s books are titled George’s Secret Key to the Universe, George and the Big Bang, George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt and George and the Unbreakable Code. She was able to sign many of our boys and the library’s books. This was very exciting.

Lucy showed us pictures all the amazing people she has had the opportunity to meet. She has met Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut, and so many other brilliant people. She has had an extremely exciting life and is a great author and journalist. She ended her session at Wyvern with a recorded message from Stephen Hawking telling us to ‘Imagine’. We hope that we get the chance to meet Lucy again sometime. Thank you Lucy Hawking for inspiring kids everywhere.