Remembering Stephen Hawking: Life, Quotes, Career And More

Stephen Hawking, the brilliant British theoretical physicist has died at the age of 76. He suffered from a debilitating neurological disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis that had forced him into a wheelchair and left him voiceless, but it never slowed down his intellect or genius.

Early life and education

Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England. He began his schooling at the Byron House School in Highgate, London. At the age of eleven, he went to St. Albans School and then on to University College, Oxford (1952).

In 1962, Stephen Hawking arrived at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) at the University of Cambridge to do research in cosmology. After gaining his PhD (1965) with his thesis titled 'Properties of Expanding Universes', he became, first, a research fellow (1965) then Fellow for Distinction in Science (1969) at Gonville & Caius College. Stephen moved to the Institute of Astronomy (1968), later moving back to DAMTP (1973), employed as a research assistant, and published his first academic book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, with George Ellis.

Publications

Stephen Hawking’s many publications include The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime with G F R Ellis, General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey, with W Israel, and 300 Years of Gravitation, with W Israel. Among the popular books Stephen Hawking has published are his best-seller A Brief History of Time, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, The Universe in a Nutshell, The Grand Design and My Brief History.

Awards and Honors

Stephen Hawking had 13 honorary degrees. He was awarded CBE (1982), Companion of Honour (1989) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009). He was the recipient of the Fundamental Physics prize (2013), Copley Medal (2006) and the Wolf Foundation prize (1988). He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Information source: www.hawking.org.uk