Watch Stephen Hawking Do the Ice Bucket Challenge

Physicist Stephen Hawking, who had pneumonia last year, said it “would not be wise for me to have a bucket of cold water poured over [him]” — referring to the viral fundraising effort in which people dump ice water over themselves or donate money to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) research. Instead, his children, Robert, Lucy and Tim, volunteered themselves as his proxies.

Hawking, who’s nearly totally paralyzed after being diagnosed with ALS at 21, urged everyone to donate to the Motor Neurone Disease Association to “eliminate this terrible disease.”

According to the ALS Association, the viral fundraising effort has raised about $95 million so far.