Hawking was filmed in his office at the University of Cambridge, in the UK, and the footage was sent via San Jose for processing then on to Australia to create his image on stage.

“He’s worried about the future of the human race. You know, he thinks that human beings are, I suppose naturally aggressive,” said Professor John Webb, the director of the lecture series at the University of New South Wales that made Hawkings talk possible.

“That may have been useful at some point in the early history of humanity enabling us to find food and get a partner and things like that, but he thinks that aggression that remains with us today is now the thing that could well end up destroying us.”

“I think he’s put a time on it to make us realise we’ve got to take better control of what we’re doing.”