Stephen Hawking (born 8 January 1942) is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. He is best known for his work on the theory of black holes. In 1974, he proposed that black holes emit radiation, now known as Hawking radiation.
Hawking was born in Oxford, England to Frank and Isobel Hawking. His father was a medical researcher who specialized in tropical diseases. His mother was a secretary at Oxford University Press. Stephen has two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother Edward (Ted).
Hawking contracted motor neurone disease in 1963 while studying at the University of Cambridge. The disease gradually paralyzed him over the decades. By 1974 he could only move his eyes and facial muscles; by 1985 he was completely paralysed from the neck down; and by 2002 he could only communicate using a speech-generating device attached to his wheelchair. Despite these impairments, he continued his scientific work and remains an active public figure within the scientific community and beyond.
Hawking’s scientific career began with his participation in a project to measure the deflection of light by the Sun’s gravity during a total eclipse; this experience kindled his interest in general relativity and quantum mechanics. He went on to hold various academic posts at both Cambridge University and Imperial College London before returning to Cambridge as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics – a position once held by Isaac Newton – in 1979.
During his time at Cambridge, Hawking made fundamental contributions to our understanding of black holes: firstly demonstrating that if quantum effects are taken into account then black holes should not be completely black but rather emit what is now known as Hawking radiation; secondly providing evidence that all black hole solutions of Einstein’s equation actually describe one single object; thirdly showing that when two black holes collide they would create gravitational waves – ripples in spacetime predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity but never directly observed until 2015 when LIGO detected them for the first time (an event which Hawking described as “the most exciting thing that has happened since man walked on the Moon”). More recently, together with Belgian physicist Thierry Hertog, Hawking has suggested that our universe may have emerged from another universe through something called inflationary bubble collision – an idea which could explain certain features of our cosmos such as its flatness (if true it would mean that our observable universe is just one bubble amongst many others floating around in some sort of ‘multiverse’).
Outside of academia, Hawking has written several popular science books including A Brief History of Time: From Big Bang to Black Holes (1988) which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and made him one famous scientist outside academia; The Universe in a Nutshell (2001); A Briefer History of Time (2005); On the Shoulders of Giants (2002); God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History (2005); among others. In 2015, he released an app called “My Life With Stephen” which allows users to experience what it is like living with motor neurone disease through interactive simulations based on real life events experienced by himself or people close to him throughout his life story such as going ice skating or attending university lectures despite being wheelchair bound or losing control over your own body movements altogether.
Given all these achievements it is no wonder why Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA (+9 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was considered one outstanding scientist among many other great minds today!