Former South African President Nelson Mandela meets Stephen Hawking at Mandela Foundation office in Johannesburg, May 15, 2008. Reuters
LONDON: A wheelchair used by Stephen Hawking has sold at auction for almost 300,000 pounds ($393,000), while a copy of the scientist's doctoral thesis fetched almost 585,000 pounds ($767,000.)
The motorized chair, used by the physicist after he was paralyzed with motor neuron disease, sold for 296,750 pounds in a Christie's online auction. It had been expected to fetch 10,000 pounds to 15,000 pounds.
Proceeds from the chair's sale will go to the Stephen Hawking Foundation and the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Hawking's 1965 thesis on the origins of the universe sold for 584,750 pounds, more than three times its pre-sale estimate, in the auction that ended Thursday.
Diagnosed with motor neuron disease at 22 and given just a few years to live, Hawking died in March at 76.
