Faces of the week

Our regular look at some of the faces which have made the news this week. Above are Stephen Hawking (main picture), with Nancy Dell'Olio, Keira Knightley, Michael Jackson and Suzi Leather.

STEPHEN HAWKING

Thirty years after coming up with a theory that changed our ideas about the universe, Stephen Hawking has said he was wrong about black holes.

Announcing his U-turn at a scientific conference in Dublin, Professor Hawking said he now believed that black holes, the mysterious massive vortexes formed from collapsed stars, do not destroy everything that is sucked into them.

Instead, he postulates, "If you jump into a black hole, your mass energy will be returned to our universe, but in a mangled form, which contains the information about what you were like, but in an unrecognisable state".

If that leaves you scratching your head, you're in good company. The winner of a bet with Hawking on the issue, John Preskill, of the California Institute of Technology, confesses: "I'll be honest, I didn't understand the talk."

Stephen Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time

But then, Stephen Hawking has long had the ability to confound, defying the prognosis of doctors that he had only two years to live, when he was diagnosed with a form of motor neurone disease 40 years ago.

Marrying in 1964, Stephen Hawking and his wife, Jane, had three children and after his education at Oxford and Cambridge, he became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge in 1979.

In 1985, confined to a wheelchair, he was left unable to speak when a bout of pneumonia necessitated a tracheotomy operation, but learned to communicate effectively with the aid of a synthesiser and computer.

Laws of the universe

Three years later, his book, A Brief History of Time, intended as a layman's guide to cosmology, became an international best-seller, although its author was aware that it was dubbed "the most popular book never read".

I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years unless we spread into space Stephen Hawking

While Hawking has now changed his mind about black holes, it was perhaps his "theory of everything", suggesting that the universe evolves according to well-defined laws, that attracted most interest.

"This complete set of laws can give us the answers to questions like how did the universe begin?" he said. "Where is it going and will it have an end? If so, how will it end? If we find the answers to these questions, we really shall know the mind of God."

Yet Professor Hawking's celebrity status is partly based on more light-hearted foundations. He was depicted in The Simpsons TV cartoon series drinking at a bar with Homer, suggesting he might steal the legendary sloucher's idea that the universe is shaped like a doughnut.

But his condition, inevitably, has made him dependent upon others. He often paid tribute to his wife, who had looked after him for 26 years, so friends and relatives were shocked when he left her for one of his nurses, whom he married in 1995.

Stephen Hawking married Elaine in 1995

By 2000, though, Stephen Hawking was a frequent visitor to the A&E department of Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, having treatment for a variety of injuries.

Police questioned him and his second wife, Elaine, about allegations he had been subjected to repeated abuse.

But Hawking himself rejected the stories and in March this year police ended their investigation, saying they could find no evidence to substantiate the claims.

As for his future, he answers as he always has done: "What can one do, but carry on?"

And the future of our universe? Whatever problems it faces, Stephen Hawking's latest thinking rules out the prospect of using black holes to travel to other universes: "I'm sorry to disappoint science fiction fans."

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NANCY DELL'OLIO Nancy Dell'Olio looked a million dollars when she arrived at a charity dinner at Prince Charles' Highgrove home just two days after her split from Sven Goran Eriksson. As well she might. Whether she dumped him, or it was the other way round, the England football manager is reported to have offered her £1m in cash and a £500,000 home not to reveal intimate secrets. On the other hand, it's thought a kiss and tell might earn her £2m, should she decide to spill the beans.

KEIRA KNIGHTLEY Newspapers everywhere seized the opportunity to picture Keira Knightley, one of Britain's hottest cinema properties, as Guinevere in King Arthur and in her next role, as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. So after playing opposite Orlando Bloom in Pirates of the Caribbean and Clive Owen in Arthur, she'll now enjoy the attention of Matthew MacFadyen. If it's any consolation to envious women, Keira confessed that she wears a fringe to hide her spots. Full story

MICHAEL JACKSON Never out of the headlines for long, Michael Jackson said he wasn't going to be a father of quads. The claim is said to have come from a female fan in Florida, who expressed her support for Jackson over his scheduled trial in California on child abuse charges. The woman is allegedly pregnant with 45-year-old Jackson's four babies under a surrogate mother arrangement. But the singer's publicist said it wasn't true. Full story

SUZI LEATHER The head of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, Suzi Leather, came under fire over its decision to relax the rules on "designer babies" to help sick siblings. The pro-life charity, Life, said the UK had gone "further down the slippery slope in creating human beings to provide spare parts for another". But Ms Leather said that selecting an embryo to provide blood cell transplants would be a "treatment of last resort". Full story

Compiled by BBC News Profiles Unit's Chris Jones