Physicist Stephen Hawking, on a visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, met Sunday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem.

Earlier Sunday, Hawking met with aspiring scientists at the Bloomfield Science Museum in the capital. He was also due to pay an evening visit to Weizmann Institute at Rehovot.

Hawking will meet Palestinian science students at the Bir Zeit University in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which will be televised at other Palestinian campuses.

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This is Hawking's fourth visit to the country and was arranged by the British Embassy in Tel Aviv.

Over the weekend, the scientist had lunch with British Ambassador Tom Phillips and visited East Jerusalem.

On Thursday, Hawking will deliver a lecture on "The Origins of the Universe" at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

The lecture, which is open to the public, has garnered massive interest, the British Embassy said.