biography sketch of stephen hawking

Stephen Hawking biography: Theories, books & quotes

A brief history of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

• Scientific achievements
• Filmography
• Quotes and controversial statements

Additional resources

Stephen Hawking is regarded as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history. 

His work on the origins and structure of the universe, from the Big Bang to black holes, revolutionized the field, while his best-selling books have appealed to readers who may not have Hawking's scientific background. Hawking died on March 14, 2018 , at the age of 76.

Stephen Hawking was seen by many as the world's smartest person, though he never revealed his IQ score. When asked about his IQ score by a New York Times reporter he replied, "I have no idea, people who boast about their IQ are losers," according to the news site The Atlantic .  

Related: 4 bizarre Stephen Hawking theories that turned out to be right (and 6 we're not sure about)

In this brief biography, we look at Hawking's education and career — ranging from his discoveries to the popular books he's written — and the disease that robbed him of mobility and speech.   

The early life of Stephen Hawking

British cosmologist Stephen William Hawking was born in Oxford, England on Jan. 8, 1942  — 300 years to the day after the death of the astronomer Galileo Galilei . He attended University College, Oxford, where he studied physics, despite his father's urging to focus on medicine. Hawking went on to Cambridge to research cosmology , the study of the universe as a whole. 

In early 1963, just shy of his 21st birthday, Hawking was diagnosed with motor neuron disease, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) . Doctors told Hawkings that he would likely not survive more than two years with the disease. Completing his doctorate did not appear likely, but Hawking defied the odds. He also obtained his PhD in 1966 for his thesis entitled " Properties of expanding universes ". In that same year, Hawking also won the prestigious Adams Prize for his essay entitled "Singularities and the Geometry of Space-Time".

From then Hawking went on to forge new roads into the understanding of the universe in the decades since. 

As the disease spread, Hawking became less mobile and began using a wheelchair. Talking grew more challenging and, in 1985, an emergency tracheotomy caused his total loss of speech. A speech-generating device constructed at Cambridge, combined with a software program, served as his electronic voice, allowing Hawking to select his words by moving the muscles in his cheek.

Just before his diagnosis, Hawking met Jane Wilde, and the two were married in 1965. The couple had three children before separating in 1990. Hawking remarried in 1995 to Elaine Mason but divorced in 2006.

Stephen Hawking's greatest scientific achievements

Throughout his career, Hawking proposed several theories regarding astronomical anomalies, posed curious questions about the cosmos and enlightened the world about the origin of everything. Here are just some of the many milestones Hawking made in the name of science. 

In 1970, Hawkings and fellow physicist and Oxford classmate, Roger Penrose, published a joint paper entitled " The singularities of gravitational collapse and cosmology ". In this paper, Hawking and Penrose proposed a new theory of spacetime singularities — a breakdown in the fabric of the universe found in one of Hawking's later discoveries, the black hole. This early work not only challenged concepts in physics but also supported the concept of the Big Bang as the birth of the universe, as outlined in Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity in the 1940s. 

Over the course of his career, Hawking studied the basic laws governing the universe. In 1974, Hawking published another paper called " Black hole explosions? ", in which he outlined a theorem that united Einstein's theory of general relativity, with quantum theory — which explains the behavior of matter and energy on an atomic level. In this new paper, Hawking hypothesized that matter not only fell into the gravitational pull of black holes but that photons radiated from them — which has now been confirmed in laboratory experiments by the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel — aptly named "Hawking radiation". 

In 1974, Hawking was inducted into the Royal Society, a worldwide fellowship of scientists. Five years later, he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the most famous academic chair in the world (the second holder was Sir Isaac Newton , also a member of the Royal Society).

During the 1980s, Hawking turned his attention to the Big Bang and the uncertainties about the beginning of the universe. "Events before the Big Bang are simply not defined, because there’s no way one could measure what happened at them. Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory and say that time began at the Big Bang," he said during his lecture called The Beginning of Time . In 1983, Hawking, along with scientists James Harlte, published a paper outlining their " no-boundary proposal " for the universe. In their paper, Hawking and Hartle describe the shape of the universe as reminiscent of a shuttlecock — with the Big Bang at the narrowest point and the expanding universe emerging from it.

Related: Can we time travel? A theoretical physicist provides some answers

Books by Stephen Hawking

In the last three decades of Hawking's life, he not only continued to publish academic literature, but he also published several popular science books to share his theories of the history of the universe with the layperson. His most popular book " A Brief History of Time " (10th-anniversary edition: Bantam, 1998) was first published in 1988 and became an international bestseller. It has sold almost 10 million copies and has been translated into 40 different languages.

Hawking went on to write other nonfiction books aimed at non-scientists. These include " A Briefer History of Time ," " The Universe in a Nutshell ," " The Grand Design " and " On the Shoulders of Giants ." 

Along with his many successful books about the inner workings of the universe, Hawking also began a series of science fiction books called " George and the Big Bang ", with his daughter Lucy Hawking in 2011. Aimed at middle school children, the series follows George's adventures as he travels through space. 

Stephen Hawking's filmography

Hawking has made several television appearances, including a playing hologram of himself on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and a cameo on the television show "Big Bang Theory." He has also voiced himself in several episodes of the animated series "Futurama" and "The Simpson". In 1997, PBS also presented an educational miniseries titled " Stephen Hawking's Universe ," which probes the theories of the cosmologist. 

 In 2014, a movie based on Hawking's life was released. Called "The Theory of Everything," the film drew praise from Hawking , who said it made him reflect on his own life. "Although I'm severely disabled, I have been successful in my scientific work," Hawking wrote on Facebook in November 2014. "I travel widely and have been to Antarctica and Easter Island, down in a submarine and up on a zero-gravity flight. One day, I hope to go into space." 

Related: The Theory of Everything: Searching for the universal rules of physics

Stephen Hawking's quotes and controversial statements

Hawking's quotes range from notable to poetic to controversial. Among them: 

• "Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? "— A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes , 1988 
• "All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the universe exist."— Stephen Hawking's Universe , 1997.  
• "Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in." — The Guardian, 2011 .
• "We should seek the greatest value of our action." — The Guardian, 2011. 
• "The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired. "— A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes , 1988.   
• "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."  
• "It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value." — Life in the Universe , 1996.  
• "One cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem." — A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes , 1988.  
• "It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven't done badly. People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining." — The Guardian, 2005 . 
• "I relish the rare opportunity I've been given to live the life of the mind. But I know I need my body and that it will not last forever." — Stem Cell Universe , 2014. 

A list of Hawking quotes would be incomplete without mentioning some of his more controversial statements.

He frequently said that humans must leave Earth if we wished to survive. 

• "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million...Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward-looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space," he said during an interview with video site Big Think , 2010. 
• "[W]e must … continue to go into space for the future of humanity…I don't think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet,"  Hawking said during a lecture at the Oxford Union debating society , 2016. 
• "We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds. It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth," he said during a speech at the Starmus Festival in Norway, 2017. 

He also said time travel should be possible, and that we should explore space for the romance of it. 

"Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out. I was one of the first to write about the conditions under which this would be possible. I showed it would require matter with negative energy density, which may not be available. Other scientists took courage from my paper and wrote further papers on the subject," he told the new site Parade in 2010. "Science is not only a disciple of reason, but, also, one of romance and passion," he adds.

The theoretical physicist was also concerned that robots could not only have an impact on the economy but also mean doom for humanity.

"The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining," he wrote in a 2016 column in The Guardian .

"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race," he told the BBC in 2014. Hawking added, however, that AI developed to date has been helpful. It's more the self-replication potential that worries him. "It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."

"The genie is out of the bottle. I fear that AI may replace humans altogether," Hawking told WIRED in November 2017.

An avowed atheist, Hawking also occasionally waded into the topic of religion.

• "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." — The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. 
• "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail…There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he said during a 2011 interview with The Guardian .
• "Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn't. I'm an atheist," Hawking said in a 2014 interview with the news site El Mundo .  

For more information about Stephen Hawking, his theories and read through the many transcriptions of his influential lectures, check out his official website . You can also watch Hawking probe the origins of the cosmos in his extraordinary TED talk .  

Bibliography

#5: Stephen Hawking’s warning: Abandon earth-or face extinction . Big Think. (2010, July 27). https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/5-stephen-hawkings-warning-abandon-earth-or-face-extinction/

Beck, J. (2017, October 11). “people who boast about their IQ are losers.” The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/trump-tillerson-iq-brag-boast-psychology-study/542544/

The beginning of time . Stephen Hawking. (n.d.-c). https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/the-beginning-of-time

Guardian News and Media. (2005, September 27). Interview: Stephen Hawking . The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/sep/27/scienceandnature.highereducationprofile

Guardian News and Media. (2011a, May 15). Stephen Hawking: “there is no heaven; it’s a Fairy story.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven

Guardian News and Media. (2011b, May 15). Stephen Hawking: “there is no heaven; it’s a Fairy story.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven

Guardian News and Media. (2016, December 1). This is the most dangerous time for our planet | Stephen Hawking . The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/stephen-hawking-dangerous-time-planet-inequality

Hartle, J. B., & Hawking, S. W. (1983, December 15). Wave function of the universe . Physical Review D. https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.28.2960

Hawking radiation and the sonic black hole - technion - israel institute of technology . Technion. (2021, February 17). https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2021/02/hawking-radiation-and-the-sonic-black-hole/

Hawking, S. W. (1974, March 1). Black Hole Explosions? . Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/248030a0

Life in the universe . Stephen Hawking. (n.d.-a). https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/life-in-the-universe

Medeiros, J. (2017, November 28). Stephen Hawking: “I fear ai may replace humans altogether.” WIRED UK. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/stephen-hawking-interview-alien-life-climate-change-donald-trump

Oxford Union Speech . Stephen Hawking. (n.d.-b). https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/speeches/speech-5

Pablo Jáuregui, Enviado especial Guía de Isora (Tenerife), & Chocolatillo. (2018, March 14). Stephen Hawking: “no hay ningún dios. soy ateo.” ELMUNDO. https://www.elmundo.es/ciencia/2014/09/21/541dbc12ca474104078b4577.html

The singularities of gravitational collapse and cosmology . Royal Society Publishing. (1970, January 27). https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.1970.0021

Hawking, S. W. (1966). Properties of expanding universes. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11283

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Biography Online

Stephen Hawking Biography

Early life Stephen Hawking

Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England. His family had moved to Oxford to escape the threat of V2 rockets over London. As a child, he showed prodigious talent and unorthodox study methods. On leaving school, he got a place at University College, Oxford University where he studied Physics. His physics tutor at Oxford, Robert Berman, later said that Stephen Hawking was an extraordinary student. He used few books and made no notes, but could work out theorems and solutions in a way other students couldn’t.

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”

– Stephen Hawking’s Universe (1985) by John Boslough, Ch. 7

It was in Cambridge that Stephen Hawking first started to develop symptoms of neuro-muscular problems – a type of motor neuron disease. This quickly started to hamper his physical movements. His speech became slurred, and he became unable to even to feed himself. At one stage, the doctors gave him a lifespan of three years. However, the progress of the disease slowed down, and he has managed to overcome his severe disability to continue his research and active public engagements. At Cambridge, a fellow scientist developed a synthetic speech device which enabled him to speak by using a touchpad. This early synthetic speech sound has become the ‘voice’ of Stephen Hawking, and as a result, he has kept the original sound of this early model – despite technological advancements.

Nevertheless, despite the latest technology, it can still be a time-consuming process for him to communicate. Stephen Hawking has taken a pragmatic view to his disability:

“It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven’t done badly. People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining. ” The Guardian (27 September 2005)

Stephen Hawking’s principal fields of research have been involved in theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity.

Amongst many other achievements, he developed a mathematical model for Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. He has also undertaken a lot of work on the nature of the Universe, The Big Bang and Black Holes.

In 1974, he outlined his theory that black holes leak energy and fade away to nothing. This became known as “Hawking radiation” in 1974. With mathematicians Roger Penrose he demonstrated that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity implies space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes.

Despite being one of the best physicists of his generation, he has also been able to translate difficult physics models into a general understanding for the general public. His books – A Brief History of Time and The Universe in A Nutshell have both became runaway bestsellers – with a Brief History of Time staying in the Bestsellers lists for over 230 weeks and selling over 10 million copies. In his books, Hawking tries to explain scientific concepts in everyday language and give an overview to the workings behind the cosmos.

“The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.”

–  A Brief History Of Time (1998) ch. 8

Stephen Hawking has become one of the most famous scientists of his generation. He makes frequent public engagements and his portrayed himself in popular media culture from programmes, such as The Simpsons to Star Trek.

Hawking had the capacity to relate the most complex physics to relateable incidents in everyday life.

“The message of this lecture is that black holes ain’t as black as they are painted. They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly to another universe. So if you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up – there’s a way out.”

Stephen Hawking. 7 January 2016 –  Reith lecture at the Royal Institute in London.

In the late 1990s, he was reportedly offered a knighthood, but 10 years later revealed he had turned it down over issues with the government’s funding for science

He married Jane Wilde, a language student in 1965. He said this was a real turning point for him at a time when he was fatalistic because of his illness. They later divorced but had three children.

Stephen Hawking passed away on 14 March 2018 at his home in Cambridge.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Stephen Hawking ”, Oxford, UK – www.biographyonline.net . Last updated 15 January 2018.

A Brief History Of Time

A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking at Amazon

Quotes of Stephen Hawking

“If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God.”

– Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (1993)

“Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”

– A Brief History of Time (1988)

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”

– Stephen Hawking

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”

– Stephen Hawking (BT advert 1993)

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Stephen Hawking (January 8, 1942–March 14, 2018) was a world-renowned cosmologist and physicist, especially esteemed for overcoming an extreme physical disability to pursue his groundbreaking scientific work. He was a bestselling author whose books made complex ideas accessible to the general public. His theories provided deep insights into the connections between quantum physics and relativity, including how those concepts might be united in explaining fundamental questions related to the development of the universe and the formation of black holes.

Fast Facts: Stephen Hawking

• Known For : Cosmologist, physicist, best-selling science writer
• Also Known As : Steven William Hawking
• Born : January 8, 1942 in Oxfordshire, England
• Parents : Frank and Isobel Hawking
• Died: March 14, 2018 in Cambridge, England
• Education : St Albans School, B.A., University College, Oxford, Ph.D., Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1966
• Published Works :  A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, The Universe in a Nutshell, On the Shoulders of Giants, A Briefer History of Time, The Grand Design, My Brief History
• Awards and Honors : Fellow of the Royal Society, the Eddington Medal, the Royal Society's Hughes Medal, the Albert Einstein Medal, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Wolf Prize in Physics, the Prince of Asturias Awards in Concord, the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the Michelson Morley Award of Case Western Reserve University, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society
• Spouses : Jane Wilde, Elaine Mason
• Children : Robert, Lucy, Timothy
• Notable Quote : “Most of the threats we face come from the progress we’ve made in science and technology. We are not going to stop making progress, or reverse it, so we must recognize the dangers and control them. I’m an optimist, and I believe we can.”

Stephen Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxfordshire, England, where his mother had been sent for safety during the German bombings of London of World War II. His mother Isobel Hawking was an Oxford graduate and his father Frank Hawking was a medical researcher.

After Stephen's birth, the family reunited in London, where his father headed the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research. The family then moved to St. Albans so that Stephen's father could pursue medical research at the nearby Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill.

Education and Medical Diagnosis

Stephen Hawking attended school in St. Albans, where he was an unexceptional student. His brilliance was much more apparent in his years at Oxford University. He specialized in physics and graduated with first-class honors despite his relative lack of diligence. In 1962, he continued his education at Cambridge University, pursuing a Ph.D. in cosmology.

At age 21, a year after beginning his doctoral program, Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as motor neuron disease, ALS, and Lou Gehrig's disease). Given only three years to live, he has written that this prognosis helped motivate him in his physics work .

There is little doubt that his ability to remain actively engaged with the world through his scientific work helped him persevere in the face of the disease. The support of family and friends were equally key. This is vividly portrayed in the dramatic film "The Theory of Everything."

The ALS Progresses

As his illness progressed, Hawking became less mobile and began using a wheelchair. As part of his condition, Hawking eventually lost his ability to speak, so he utilized a device capable of translating his eye movements (since he could no longer utilize a keypad) to speak in a digitized voice.

In addition to his keen mind within physics, he gained respect throughout the world as a science communicator. His achievements are deeply impressive on their own, but some of the reason he is so universally respected was his ability to accomplish so much while suffering the severe debility caused by ALS.

Marriage and Children

Just before his diagnosis, Hawking met Jane Wilde, and the two were married in 1965. The couple had three children before separating. Hawking later married Elaine Mason in 1995 and they divorced in 2006.

Career as Academic and Author

Hawking stayed on at Cambridge after his graduation, first as a research fellow and then as a professional fellow. For most of his academic career, Hawking served as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a position once held by Sir Isaac Newton .

Following a long tradition, Hawking retired from this post at age 67, in the spring of 2009, though he continued his research at the university's cosmology institute. In 2008 he also accepted a position as a visiting researcher at Waterloo, Ontario's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

In 1982 Hawking began work on a popular book on cosmology. By 1984 he had produced the first draft of "A Brief History of Time," which he published in 1988 after some medical setbacks. This book remained on the Sunday Times bestsellers list for 237 weeks. Hawking's even more accessible "A Briefer History of Time" was published in 2005.

Fields of Study

Hawking's major research was in the areas of theoretical cosmology , focusing on the evolution of the universe as governed by the laws of general relativity . He is most well-known for his work in the study of black holes . Through his work, Hawking was able to:

• Prove that singularities are general features of spacetime.
• Provide mathematical proof that information which fell into a black hole was lost.
• Demonstrate that black holes evaporate through Hawking radiation .

On March 14, 2018, Stephen Hawking died in his home in Cambridge, England. He was 76. His ashes were placed in London’s Westminster Abbey between the final resting places of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

Stephen Hawking made large contributions as a scientist, science communicator, and as a heroic example of how enormous obstacles can be overcome. The Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication is a prestigious award that "recognizes the merit of popular science on an international level."

Thanks to his distinctive appearance, voice, and popularity, Stephen Hawking is often represented in popular culture. He made appearances on the television shows "The Simpsons" and "Futurama," as well as having a cameo on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in 1993.

"The Theory of Everything," a biographical drama film about Hawking's life, was released in 2014.

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Comment and Physics

A brief history of stephen hawking: a legacy of paradox.

By Stuart Clark

14 March 2018

Gemma Levine/Getty

Stephen Hawking, the world-famous theoretical physicist, has died at the age of 76.

Hawking’s children, Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement: “We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today.

“He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humour inspired people across the world.

“He once said: ‘It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.’ We will miss him for ever.”

Stephen Hawking dies aged 76

Tributes flow in following the death of world-famous theoretical physicist stephen hawking.

The most recognisable scientist of our age, Hawking holds an iconic status. His genre-defining book, A Brief History of Time , has sold more than 10 million copies since its publication in 1988, and has been translated into more than 35 languages. He appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation , The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory . His early life was the subject of an Oscar-winning performance by Eddie Redmayne in the 2014 film  The Theory of Everything . He was routinely consulted for oracular pronouncements on everything from time travel and alien life to Middle Eastern politics and nefarious robots . He had an endearing sense of humour and a daredevil attitude – relatable human traits that, combined with his seemingly superhuman mind, made Hawking eminently marketable.

But his cultural status – amplified by his disability and the media storm it invoked – often overshadowed his scientific legacy. That’s a shame for the man who discovered what might prove to be the key clue to the theory of everything , advanced our understanding of space and time, helped shape the course of physics for the last four decades and whose insight continues to drive progress in fundamental physics today.

Beginning with the big bang

Hawking’s research career began with disappointment. Arriving at the University of Cambridge in 1962 to begin his PhD, he was told that Fred Hoyle , his chosen supervisor, already had a full complement of students. The most famous British astrophysicist at the time, Hoyle was a magnet for the more ambitious students. Hawking didn’t make the cut. Instead, he was to work with Dennis Sciama, a physicist Hawking knew nothing about. In the same year, Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a degenerative motor neurone disease that quickly robs people of the ability to voluntarily move their muscles. He was told he had two years to live.

Although Hawking’s body may have weakened, his intellect stayed sharp. Two years into his PhD, he was having trouble walking and talking, but it was clear that the disease was progressing more slowly than the doctors had initially feared. Meanwhile, his engagement to Jane Wilde – with whom he later had three children, Robert, Lucy and Tim – renewed his drive to make real progress in physics.

Stephen and Lucy Hawking

James Veysey/Camera Press

Working with Sciama had its advantages. Hoyle’s fame meant that he was seldom in the department, whereas Sciama was around and eager to talk. Those discussions stimulated the young Hawking to pursue his own scientific vision. Hoyle was vehemently opposed to the big bang theory (in fact, he had coined the name “big bang” in mockery). Sciama, on the other hand, was happy for Hawking to investigate the beginning of time.

Time’s arrow

Hawking was studying the work of Roger Penrose , which proved that if Einstein’s general theory of relativity is correct, at the heart of every black hole must be a point where space and time themselves break down – a singularity. Hawking realised that if time’s arrow were reversed, the same reasoning would hold true for the universe as a whole. Under Sciama’s encouragement, he worked out the maths and was able to prove it: the universe according to general relativity began in a singularity.

Hawking was well aware, however, that Einstein didn’t have the last word. General relativity, which describes space and time on a large scale, doesn’t take into account quantum mechanics , which describes matter’s strange behaviour at much smaller scales. Some unknown “theory of everything” was needed to unite the two. For Hawking, the singularity at the universe’s origin did not signal the breakdown of space and time; it signalled the need for quantum gravity .

Luckily, the link that he forged between Penrose’s singularity and the singularity at the big bang provided a key clue for finding such a theory. If physicists wanted to understand the origin of the universe, Hawking had just shown them exactly where to look: a black hole .

Black holes were a subject ripe for investigation in the early 1970s. Although Karl Schwarzschild had found such objects lurking in the equations of general relativity back in 1915, theoreticians viewed them as mere mathematical anomalies and were reluctant to believe they could actually exist.

Albeit frightening, their action is reasonably straightforward: black holes have such strong gravitational fields that nothing, not even light, can escape their grip. Any matter that falls into one is forever lost to the outside world. This, however, is a dagger in the heart of thermodynamics.

Stephen Hawking's final theorem turns time and causality inside out

In his final years, Stephen Hawking tackled the question of why the universe appears fine-tuned for life. His collaborator Thomas Hertog explains the radical solution they came up with

Thermodynamic threat

The second law of thermodynamics is one of the most well-established laws of nature. It states that the entropy, or level of disorder in a system, always increases. The second law gives form to the observation that ice cubes will melt into a puddle, but a puddle of water will never spontaneously turn into a block of ice. All matter contains entropy, so what happens when it is dropped into a black hole? Is entropy lost along with it? If so, the total entropy of the universe goes down and black holes would violate the second law of thermodynamics.

Hawking thought that this was fine. He was happy to discard any concept that stood in the way to a deeper truth. And if that meant the second law, then so be it.

Bekenstein and breakthrough

But Hawking met his match at a 1972 physics summer school in the French ski resort of Les Houches, France. Princeton University graduate student Jacob Bekenstein thought that the second law of thermodynamics should apply to black holes too. Bekenstein had been studying the entropy problem and had reached a possible solution thanks to an earlier insight of Hawking’s .

A black hole hides its singularity with a boundary known as the event horizon. Nothing that crosses the event horizon can ever return to the outside. Hawking’s work had shown that the area of a black hole’s event horizon never decreases over time. What’s more, when matter falls into a black hole, the area of its event horizon grows.

Bekenstein realised this was key to the entropy problem. Every time a black hole swallows matter, its entropy appears to be lost, and at the same time, its event horizon grows. So, Bekenstein suggested, what if – to preserve the second law – the area of the horizon is itself a measure of entropy?

Hawking immediately disliked the idea and was angry that his own work had been used in support of a concept so flawed. With entropy comes heat, but the black hole couldn’t be radiating heat – nothing can escape its pull of gravity. During a break from the lectures, Hawking got together with colleagues Brandon Carter, who also studied under Sciama, and James Bardeen, of the University of Washington, and confronted Bekenstein.

The disagreement bothered Bekenstein. “These three were senior people. I was just out of my PhD. You worry whether you are just stupid and these guys know the truth,” he recalls.

Back in Cambridge, Hawking set out to prove Bekenstein wrong. Instead, he discovered the precise form of the mathematical relationship between entropy and the black hole’s horizon. Rather than destroying the idea, he had confirmed it. It was Hawking’s greatest breakthrough.

Hawking radiation

Hawking now embraced the idea that thermodynamics played a part in black holes. Anything that has entropy, he reasoned, also has a temperature – and anything that has a temperature can radiate.

His original mistake, Hawking realised, was in only considering general relativity, which says that nothing – no particles, no heat – can escape the grip of a black hole. That changes when quantum mechanics comes into play. According to quantum mechanics, fleeting pairs of particles and antiparticles are constantly appearing out of empty space, only to annihilate and disappear in the blink of an eye. When this happens in the vicinity of an event horizon, a particle-antiparticle pair can be separated – one falls behind the horizon while one escapes, leaving them forever unable to meet and annihilate. The orphaned particles stream away from the black hole’s edge as radiation. The randomness of quantum creation becomes the randomness of heat.

“I think most physicists would agree that Hawking’s greatest contribution is the prediction that black holes emit radiation,” says Sean Carroll , a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. “While we still don’t have experimental confirmation that Hawking’s prediction is true, nearly every expert believes he was right.”

Experiments to test Hawking’s prediction are so difficult because the more massive a black hole is, the lower its temperature. For a large black hole – the kind astronomers can study with a telescope – the temperature of the radiation is too insignificant to measure. As Hawking himself often noted, it was for this reason that he was never awarded a Nobel Prize. Still, the prediction was enough to secure him a prime place in the annals of science, and the quantum particles that stream from the black hole’s edge would forever be known as Hawking radiation .

Some have suggested that they should more appropriately be called Bekenstein-Hawking radiation, but Bekenstein himself rejects this. “The entropy of a black hole is called Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, which I think is fine. I wrote it down first, Hawking found the numerical value of the constant, so together we found the formula as it is today. The radiation was really Hawking’s work. I had no idea how a black hole could radiate. Hawking brought that out very clearly. So that should be called Hawking radiation.”

Theory of everything

The Bekenstein-Hawking entropy equation is the one Hawking asked to have engraved on his tombstone. It represents the ultimate mash-up of physical disciplines because it contains Newton’s constant, which clearly relates to gravity; Planck’s constant, which betrays quantum mechanics at play; the speed of light, the talisman of Einstein’s relativity; and the Boltzmann constant, the herald of thermodynamics.

The presence of these diverse constants hinted at a theory of everything, in which all physics is unified. Furthermore, it strongly corroborated Hawking’s original hunch that understanding black holes would be key in unlocking that deeper theory.

Hawking’s breakthrough may have solved the entropy problem, but it raised an even more difficult problem in its wake. If black holes can radiate, they will eventually evaporate and disappear. So what happens to all the information that fell in? Does it vanish too? If so, it will violate a central tenet of quantum mechanics. On the other hand, if it escapes from the black hole, it will violate Einstein’s theory of relativity. With the discovery of black hole radiation, Hawking had pit the ultimate laws of physics against one another. The black hole information loss paradox had been born.

Hawking staked his position in another ground-breaking and even more contentious paper entitled Breakdown of predictability in gravitational collapse, published in Physical Review D in 1976. He argued that when a black hole radiates away its mass, it does take all of its information with it – despite the fact that quantum mechanics expressly forbids information loss. Soon other physicists would pick sides, for or against this idea, in a debate that continues to this day. Indeed, many feel that information loss is the most pressing obstacle in understanding quantum gravity.

“Hawking’s 1976 argument that black holes lose information is a towering achievement, perhaps one of the most consequential discoveries on the theoretical side of physics since the subject was invented,” says Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley.

By the late 1990s, results emerging from string theory had most theoretical physicists convinced that Hawking was wrong about information loss, but Hawking, known for his stubbornness, dug in his heels. It wasn’t until 2004 that he would change his mind. And he did it with flair – dramatically showing up at a conference in Dublin and announcing his updated view : black holes cannot lose information.

Today, however, a new paradox known as the firewall has thrown everything into doubt (see “Hawking’s paradox”, below). It is clear that the question Hawking raised is at the core of the quest for quantum gravity.

“Black hole radiation raises serious puzzles we are still working very hard to understand,” says Carroll . “It’s fair to say that Hawking radiation is the single biggest clue we have to the ultimate reconciliation of quantum mechanics and gravity, arguably the greatest challenge facing theoretical physics today.”

Hawking’s legacy, says Bousso, will be “having put his finger on the key difficulty in the search for a theory of everything”.

Hawking continued pushing the boundaries of theoretical physics at a seemingly impossible pace for the rest of his life. He made important inroads towards understanding how quantum mechanics applies to the universe as a whole, leading the way in the field known as quantum cosmology. His progressive disease pushed him to tackle problems in novel ways, which contributed to his remarkable intuition for his subject. As he lost the ability to write out long, complicated equations, Hawking found new and inventive methods to solve problems in his head, usually by reimagining them in geometric form. But, like Einstein before him, Hawking never produced anything quite as revolutionary as his early work.

“Hawking’s most influential work was done in the 1970s, when he was younger,” says Carroll, “but that’s completely standard even for physicists who aren’t burdened with a debilitating neurone disease.”

Stephen Hawking's black hole paradox may finally have a solution

Black holes may not destroy all information about what they were originally made of, according to a new set of quantum calculations, which would solve a major physics paradox first described by Stephen Hawking

Hawking the superstar

In the meantime, the publication of A Brief History of Time catapulted Hawking to cultural stardom and gave a fresh face to theoretical physics. He never seemed to mind. “In front of the camera, Hawking played the character of Hawking. He seemed to play with his cultural status,” says Hélène Mialet, an anthropologist from the University of California, Berkeley, who courted controversy in 2012 with the publication of her book Hawking Incorporated. In it, she investigated the way the people around Hawking helped him build and maintain his public image .

That public image undoubtedly made his life easier than it might otherwise have been. As Hawking’s disease progressed, technologists gladly provided increasingly complicated machines to allow him to communicate. This, in turn, let him continue doing the thing for which he should ultimately be remembered: his science.

“Stephen Hawking has done more to advance our understanding of gravitation than anyone since Einstein,” Carroll says. “He was a world-leading theoretical physicist, clearly the best in the world for his time among those working at the intersection of gravity and quantum mechanics, and he did it all in the face of a terrible disease. He is an inspirational figure, and history will certainly remember him that way.”

Hawking's paradox

In 2012, four physicists at the University of California, Santa Barbara – Ahmed Almheiri, Donald Marolf, Joseph Polchinski and James Sully, known collectively by physicists as AMPS – shocked the physics community with the results of a thought experiment .

When pairs of particles and antiparticles spawn near a black hole's event horizon, each pair shares a connection called entanglement. But what happens to this link and the information it holds when one of the pair falls in, leaving its twin to become a particle of Hawking radiation (see main story)?

One school of thought holds that the information is preserved as the hole evaporates, and that it is placed into subtle correlations among these particles of Hawking radiation.

But, AMPS asked, what does it look like to observers inside and outside the black hole? Enter Alice and Bob.

According to Bob, who remains outside the black hole, that particle has been separated from its antiparticle partner by the horizon. In order to preserve information, it must become entangled with another particle of Hawking radiation.

But what's happening from the point of view of Alice, who falls into the black hole? General relativity says that for a free-falling observer, gravity disappears, so she doesn't see the event horizon. According to Alice, the particle in question remains entangled with its antiparticle partner, because there is no horizon to separate them. The paradox is born.

So who is right? Bob or Alice? If it's Bob, then Alice will not encounter empty space at the horizon as general relativity claims. Instead she will be burned to a crisp by a wall of Hawking radiation – a firewall. If it's Alice who's right, then information will be lost, breaking a fundamental rule of quantum mechanics. "The fervent controversy surrounding Hawking's paradox reflects the stakes his work has raised: in quantising gravity, what gives? And how much?" says Raphael Bousso of the University of California, Berkeley. The answer awaits us in the theory of everything. Amanda Gefter

Article amended on 14 March 2018

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A Brief History of Stephen Hawking

“I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.”

He was an exception, a genius and a curious mind. Challenging the future, racing against his own time, he might be one of the powerful examples of sheer determination and hope. He made way ahead…in his wheelchair, traveled around the world, studying and giving lecturers about Time & Space.

Yes, we are addressing the prodigy, the King of Physics- Professor Stephen William Hawking, a Physicist, Cosmologist and a dreamer. “Although I cannot move, I have to speak through a computer, but in my mind, I am free,” said Stephen Hawking during one of his lectures.

Here is a brief rundown of the brilliant theoretical physicist and his groundbreaking works in the field of Cosmology and Physics.

• Stephen Hawking was born on 8 th of January 1942, exactly 300 years after the death of Galileo.
• At School, he was nicknamed as ‘Einstein’.
• He did his degree in natural sciences, specializing in Physics from Oxford University, London.
• In 1962, he graduated with first-class honors and left for Cambridge University to begin his Ph.D.

His race against time and life

• At 21, he was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) which is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.
• He returned to Cambridge to complete his PhD
• He worked on one of the most debated topics at that period of time: ‘T he existence of Universe and its birth.’
• In 1965, he made a breakthrough discovery. His theory stated that ‘the Universe had a beginning.’ He controversially showed that there is no need of a creator or a god because the universe came to an existence all by itself.

The black-hole theory

The concept of singularity refers to a one-dimensional point which contain huge mass in an infinitely small space, where density and gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely and where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate. Basically, it is the center of the black hole where gravity is thought to approach infinity.

Hawking applied the same notion of singularity to the entire universe, and there he had the ground-breaking discovery about the universe.

A series of Achievements

• Stephen did path-breaking work on singularities which proved that the universe might have begun in singularity.
• He co-discovered the four laws of black hole mechanics.
• His discovery in 1970 threw all the cosmologist’s finding till the date in the air. By using quantum theory and general relativity, he was able to show that black holes can emit radiations, which is now known as Hawking Radiation.
• In 1974, his name was inducted into the Royal Society, one of the most prestigious bodies of the Scientists. His name sat along Sir Issac Newton and Charles Darwin.
• He made contributions to the theory of cosmic inflation.
• In 1988, his book ‘A Brief History of Time’ was published.
• It was sold about 8 million copies and stayed on the best-seller list for over 4 years and entered into the Guinness book for the record for doing so.
• In 2002, he was ranked as one of the 100 greatest Britons in BBC poll.

The next finding on black-hole

Initially, it was believed that a black hole can only increase, never decrease in size. It was very obvious since nothing can escape that gets close, it can only swallow more matter and gain mass.

But later it was discovered that black holes emit radiation, (known as Hawking Radiation) and gradually disappears. It was a remarkably important discovery as this result unified the Relativity theory, Quantum Theory and Fermi Dynamics, the unification of 3 concepts in the Physics.

“ We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special ,” said Stephen Hawking, the man who was certainly an outlier- who lived for 55 years with a disease which only had an average life-expectancy of 3 years. He defied the odds, not only attained his Ph.D. but also forged new roads into understanding the universe for decades.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What did Hawking discover?

Stephen Hawking discovered that black holes emit radiation which can be detected by special instrumentation, thus making the study of black holes possible.

2. How did Stephen Hawking talk?

Stephen Hawking used a word synthesizer and a word prediction software to speak through a computer.

3. Why is Stephen Hawking important?

Stephen Hawking uncovered many secrets of the universe, pushing the field of science farther than any of his peers. His theoretical work on black holes made it possible to study these mysterious objects about which nothing was known before.

4. What is Stephen Hawking IQ level?

Stephen Hawking never revealed his IQ level. There are only speculations and most sources put it close to 160.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Abhimanyu.R.B

July 3, 2020

He is an inspiration for the youth showing that nothing is impossible.

Astha Verma

September 1, 2019

Hawking is an extraordinary human ( don’t correct it he will live forever)?

May 31, 2019

He is Inspirational for students

Mohammad Abbas

October 13, 2018

Nice collection

Megha Unnikrishnan

July 7, 2018

He is a very miraculous person with determination and courage who battled the odds and hurdles in his life.His story is an inspirational one.

Priyanshi Jain

June 6, 2018

He is miraculous.

June 2, 2018

He was truly a great man with great mind,I love reading his theories about space as they are so amazing and interesting.He overvomed his illness when he was declared to be terminally ill.He is a great motivation and a brilliant scientist.Even though he was physically challenged he became world’s one of the most successful scientists.

Falak pathan

May 30, 2018

My favourite scientist

May 28, 2018

He is really a great scientist

He is a really great scientist.

May 24, 2018

Such an inspiring story. Even after being diagnosed with ALS he never backed up.He is an inspiration to all young and old

May 23, 2018

He was more than a god

Manamita Datta

A legend! A great bow to him! Huge inspiration!!!

May 22, 2018

A great step further for science. Where the rules(laws) of physics is in followed. IS THE, BLACK HOLE ?️

He is very inspire to me

He was always inspire to me

He was very inspire to me.

May 21, 2018

The great humanity

He was a role model for everyone!

Saumya Gangwar

May 20, 2018

He’s a man of honor

Adarsh Goel

We will miss you mr. Hawking thank you for all your theories rest in piece thank you for being an inspiration for us!

Till end of his last breath .He fought for the country

May 19, 2018

He is the real challenger,motivator and winner

SHREYA CHATTERJEE

May 18, 2018

Thanks for your support its inspiring.

He is an inspiration for those who love challenges. He is an inspiration for those who want to excel in life.

Inspired me a lot From wheel chair to the beginning of world

RISHABH RAJ SINGH

May 16, 2018

He was a genius.

Manav Mahawar

It destroys the whole Galaxy. It proves that nothing is impossible.

It is destroy the whole Galaxy and it prove that nothing is impossible.

He was the king of physics and will always be??

Praise Chandra mouli

May 15, 2018

He was a great personality and I think that he was a great inspiration for all of us.All of us can follow his footsteps to get the success.

He was the man who defeated death by the brain

Disability can never stop us for to be successful if u have determination to do something . it’s really very inspirational

May 14, 2018

He is true inspiration for everyone who really work hard to reach their goals n he has proven nobody is disabled but everyone are specially able… He is a great person

He is something more than a creation because he is a creator

Reeta Maria Rexon

May 13, 2018

He was a genius never to be forgotten …

May 12, 2018

While reading this article I never get bored

he proved that there is no god in the universe and a great motivation for us…..

I have no words to say

he got 19 awards in science and it is a normal thing definitely he left a path for us to discover more things though he is not alive, but still he lives in science, which doesn’t has end nor death

M.Prathyush

Thelegend who proved us difficulties have nothing to do with talent…. He crashed the barriers to instill the importance of hard work in our minds….may the maestro rest peacefully in his permanent sleep…..

Abhishek Kumar

I like all the blogs

May 11, 2018

Thank you BYJU’s for giving us a chance to know about Late Stephen Hawking…… It’s a pleasure to read about him……… Thanks a lot

Even though he is no more, he will live forever in our minds and hearts.

May 10, 2018

I think u could add more about the book BLACK HOLES It’s a Stephen Hawking book which I hope many people might not have read And about Stephen Hawking I don’t have words as he was my ideal and when he died I wore a white dress the whole day

He is an outstanding man who unleashed the mysteries of space and time from his wheelchair.

May 9, 2018

If hawking can achieve this in a negative health condition we should remember that we can achieve more than this

At his end he was noticed all around the world only as a scientist rather than a handicap

He was such a noble person who always deserves a name called “BORN GENIUS”

He is a big inspiration for my ambition

Tejas r gowda

A great personality and a great scientist. RIP Stephen Hawking.

Ashlesha Meshram

He was called Einstein in his school but he was not really interested in bookish knowledge instead he liked to open clocks and other machines to see how they work.It is really unique and also COOL.Isn’t it?

sunny kumar

he is one of the great face we had ever on our beautiful planet

This was good explanation of Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking was a great scientists after discovering the black hole theory

What beautiful life has been spent by him.

Samriddhi Singh

He was very great and intelligent but also very brave as he worked hard to achieve his goals and gave all of us a message that where there is a will there is a way

May 8, 2018

An example of optimism. Didn’t let his disabilities disable him.

The facts are really amazing which Hawking sir said . He proved that nothing is impossible in this world

Sundaravadivelu

He is a great man of modern times who defied all odds against him. He is rolemodel for everyone.

Always inspiring and gives some motivation which is always immortal

shikha sarkar

more than an inspiration

He is literally a genius and he proved that he is an excellent inspiration.

Abhishek Munshi

Truly inspiring

great man he was

Sree parvathy

He was not only a legend in the world of physics but for the whole world.. what he did for us is limitless

He overcame all the hard barriers with a point of view of only his aim. A perfect motivation.

Truly a genius. One would have given up after such binding medical conditions but not one as determined as he was

May 7, 2018

Seriously he is an outstanding..

Vikalp shukla

Ya thanks byjus to providing us with a such useful and inspiring information.He was one of the greatest scientists of the world.

An Universal master in physics.

A salute to such a genius who made us know about such incredible thing “BLACK HOLE”

Chandrabala

Not for his genius discovery of black holes, he has shown that nothing is impossible if one dares to achieve against all odds

Bharath Binu Menon

A true symbol of human efficiency and productivity;his fetishism towards natural sciences and cosmology is unrivalled and undefeated. Although many of his critics claim his observations as divisive and blatant he is still a legendary scientist and excellent mathematician. I am really proud to say that I lived during his era.May God bless his Soul.

REST IN PEACE GREAT HAWKING!!!

Vatsal gupta

great fact about our genius Hawking and this big universe

Vinita kumari

He was not just a great scientist. He was a genius-hero .His invention were superb.

He was not just a great scientist. He was a genius-hero

VISHMARAJ DEY

inspiring and excellent information

His works and life are truly inspiring He is such an inspiration…

Biswajit Kabi

Sir, Stephen Hawking devotion towards Physics and his curiosity to know and find different things really inspire us. He will be always remember by the world.

Srihari Iyengar

He is a nice guy and has inspiring nature.

He is an inspiration for every physicists

Harsh Prashant Nalgirkar

He is one of the most satisfying and very inspirational scientist I have ever known.

He is an all time astrophysicist. He is a very good role model for all the students

Lovely. We miss Steven Hawkins. He is the real hero of science

Murtuzaali Surti

He was a Real Hero of science!

Suhasini rajan

It’s like a science fiction story. It’s really amazing dicovery.I’m Still wondering

Sahil Chauhan

This is the best app that i have ever use in my life. This app can help me to understand the things easily and simply this app can make me perfect in the learning…. So, i recommend this app to everyone…..

May 6, 2018

A man with different thinking more than man a god of knowledge

Sweksha jaiswal

He was really amazing!

Anshuman Rathi

He was a great human or a great soul

The one who defied everything… GENIUS!!

Raj Krishna Choudhary

He is my guru. It’s hard to find guys like him Doing research like him is my dream not aim. RIP Stephen William great hawking

The man who lived his life without his body but only with his willpower & determination. When the world cares about looks, he changed the looks of the world.

Deeksha Yagnavalkya

Awesome facts!!!!!…

He is very inspiring man he is one of my favorite hero

Anantraj Saha

He should be awarded Nobel Prize not Only for what he discovered but also for his enthusiasm even after his Illness and hardship of life.

AKARSH MISHRA

We love you sir Hawking and miss you at this point of science acknowledgence.

He is a great inspiration for all of us

What an incredible man he is !!!!!

Stephen Hawking his a great

AYUSHI TIWARI

Though he was suffering from a disease then to he never thought of taking his steps back Great scientist great hawing…..

Deepu Dev T

Unified 3 main concepts in physics, Relativity Quantum theory Fermi dynamics.

Wow. He was also in search for a completely unified theory. Which explains the universe in a much better way.

Sreelakshmi

He is very inspiring. I really love his words, “There shall be no boundaries to human endeavour. However bad life may seem, there will be something to succeed at. Where there is life, there is hope.”

I salute professor Stephen Hawking but I think that EINSTEIN,GALILEO AND STEPHEN HAWKINS ARE CO RELATED WITH EACH OTHER

He was really great, a true inspiration and a big genius…..

He is the father of universe,space and time. I believe in his words “there is no need of a God because universe came itself in existence”.

Tushar solanki.

A salute to a quite man with a loud mind.He is no more but his ideas are still alive….. Salute ☺️☺️??.

Sir Stephen Hawking proved that if you have a strong will to achieve a goal No force can stop you till you achieve your goal

Disha patil

Stephen Hawking is an inspiration for all of us. Though he had a disease at an early age he did not give up and discovered very interesting things. He is like the God of physics.?

Nidhi Mundhada

Sir Stephen Hawking undoubtedly proved that circumstances do come in life, but challenging them and moving forward at the same time is the truth of life…….

Purnima baghel

Greatest scientist ever like Einstein and Worth nobel prize…

Very Inspiring !

I think he is Second name of successful. He is one of the bst example and inspiration for future of this world.

Ranvir Sharma

Such a brilliant person who has devoted his life in the field of knowledge and understanding the universe

very very inspiring.

Inspiring. He proved that nothing is impossible if one works with dedication, determination and devotion. Hats off man!!!?

He was such a inspirational person that made nothing is impossible…he will remain forever in our hearts.?

Anjali Chugh

We can’t deny that he opened path for many challenges

He was an extraordinary man.

He is literally a genius

April 23, 2018

Inspiring but his views are so general to be challenged easily , but again it’s hard cuz they seem right at the same time .

April 9, 2018

he proved that nothing is impossible !

April 4, 2018

He is an inspiration for us.

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Stephen william hawking.

I got an education there that was as good as, if not better than, that I would have had at Westminster. I have never found that my lack of social graces has been a hindrance.

The prevailing attitude at Oxford at that time was very anti-work. You were supposed to be brilliant without effort, or accept your limitations and get a fourth-class degree. To work hard to get a better class of degree was regarded as the mark of a grey man - the worst epithet in the Oxford vocabulary.

... although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found to my surprise that I was enjoying life in the present more than I had before. I began to make progress with my research...

... I therefore started working for the first time in my life. To my surprise I found I liked it.

... that both time and space are finite in extent, but they don't have any boundary or edge. ... there would be no singularities, and the laws of science would hold everywhere, including at the beginning of the universe.

I was in Geneva, at CERN, the big particle accelerator, in the summer of 1985 . ... I caught pneumonia and was rushed to hospital. The hospital in Geneva suggested to my wife that it was not worth keeping the life support machine on. But she was having none of that. I was flown back to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, where a surgeon called Roger Grey carried out a tracheotomy. That operation saved my life but took away my voice.

While many prominent physicists, cosmologists and astronomers have made important contributions to the study of quantum gravity and cosmology, the impact of Stephen Hawking's contributions to the field truly stand out. Although his work on black hole thermodynamics is perhaps the most well known, Hawking has also made major contributions to the study of singularity theorems in general relativity, black hole uniqueness, quantum fields in curved spacetimes, Euclidean quantum gravity, the wave function of the universe and many other areas as well. In addition to his own work, Hawking has served as advisor and mentor to a remarkable set of students. Furthermore, it would be hard to imagine assembling any list of researchers working in quantum cosmology without including a large number of Hawking's students and close colleagues. Thus the group that gathered at the CMS in Cambridge in honour of his 60 th birthday includes some of the leading theorists in the field.

... for boldness and creativity in gravitational physics, best illustrated by the prediction that black holes should emit black body radiation and evaporate, and for the special gift of making abstract ideas accessible and exciting to experts, generalists, and the public alike.

Stephen Hawking has contributed as much as anyone since Einstein to our understanding of gravity. This medal is a fitting recognition of an astonishing research career spanning more than 40 years.

Stephen Hawking is a definitive hero to all of us involved in exploring the Cosmos. His contribution to science is unique and he serves as a continuous inspiration to every thinking person. It was an honour for the crew of the STS- 121 mission to fly his medal into space. We think that this is particularly appropriate as Stephen has dedicated his life to thinking about the larger Universe.

This is a very distinguished medal. It was awarded to Darwin, Einstein and Crick. I am honoured to be in their company.

References ( show )

• Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/biography/Stephen-W-Hawking
• S Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays ( London, 1993) .

Additional Resources ( show )

Other pages about Stephen Hawking:

• Guardian obituary
• New York Times obituary
• Multiple entries in The Mathematical Gazetteer of the British Isles ,
• Miller's postage stamps

Other websites about Stephen Hawking:

• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Stephen Hawking's home page
• A Google doodle
• Mathematical Genealogy Project
• MathSciNet Author profile
• zbMATH entry

Honours ( show )

Honours awarded to Stephen Hawking

• Lucasian Professor 1979
• LMS Naylor Prize 1999
• Copley Medal 2006
• Google doodle 2022

Cross-references ( show )

• History Topics: A history of time: 20 th century time
• History Topics: The development of the 'black hole' concept
• Societies: Pontifical Academy of Sciences
• Other: 2009 Most popular biographies
• Other: Cambridge Colleges
• Other: Cambridge Individuals
• Other: Cambridge professorships
• Other: Jeff Miller's postage stamps
• Other: London Museums
• Other: Most popular biographies – 2024
• Other: Oxford Institutions and Colleges
• Other: Oxford individuals
• Other: Popular biographies 2018

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Portraits of Stephen Hawking: a visual biography

Posted 28 Aug 2020, by Scott Jordan Harris

In the mid-1980s, the National Portrait Gallery commissioned a series of pictures intended to raise the profiles of some contemporary British scientists who were prominent in their fields but little known to the public. One of these portraits, by Yolanda Sonnabend , was of the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, Stephen Hawking .

Stephen William Hawking 1985

Yolanda Sonnabend (1935–2015)

It was the first of several major portraits of the physicist that would be painted over the next 25 years. These pictures chart not only ordinary ageing but also the progress of Hawking's Motor Neurone Disease (MND), the degenerative condition otherwise known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). They also capture Hawking before, and at various stages of, the global fame that followed the publication of his bestselling book A Brief History of Time in 1988.

It's rare for a scientist to sit for so many important portraits, and even rarer for a disabled person to do so, and considered together the pictures form a compelling visual biography.

The Sonnabend portrait, painted in 1985, shows Hawking in his early 40s. In contrast to many notable paintings of disabled people – L. S. Lowry's The Cripples , for example – the focus is not on the misery supposedly inflicted by his impairments but on his status as a scientist.

The Cripples 1949

Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887–1976)

There appear to be unfinished equations on the blackboard behind him and we feel that perhaps we have interrupted him at work. Hawking's youthful appearance makes him seem like someone at the beginning of his career – even though, at the time the picture was painted, he had already been appointed to one of the most prestigious posts in academia and had outlived doctors' initial predictions of his life expectancy by 20 years.

Diagnosed with MND in 1963, he had at first been given only a few years to live.

Unlike later pictures, painted after Hawking lost much of the movement in his neck, Paul Gopal-Chowdhury 's 1989 portrait shows Hawking sitting upright.

Professor Stephen William Hawking

Paul Gopal-Chowdhury (b.1949)

Fittingly for a work that hangs in Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, the professor looks at us as he might at students who want to ask him a question. He's ready to answer, his hand poised on the controller of the speech computer he had begun using in 1986.

This depiction of Hawking as alert, engaged and – crucially – ready to speak counteracts one of the most pervasive myths about him: that, because of the esoteric nature of the work that occupied his mind, and the extent of the disabilities that affected his body, he was separated from society and all but imprisoned in his own world.

When Hawking appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs in 1992 , the programme's presenter, Sue Lawley, suggested that, unlike previous guests she'd interviewed, he already knew what it was like to be isolated from the rest of the human race.

It was an idea he rejected outright. A Brief History of Time – like Hawking's lectures and, indeed, like his appearance on Desert Island Discs – demonstrate that, far from being voiceless and alone, Hawking was a born communicator. Gopal-Chowdhury presents him as such.

Gopal-Chowdhury had painted Hawking before: the professor is one of 15 figures in the 1984 picture Fellows at Dessert , which also hangs at Gonville & Caius College.

Fellows at Dessert 1984

Hawking sits towards the back of the image, at the far left corner of the dining table, beside the college president. It's significant that Hawking is not immediately identifiable and that it takes us a moment to realise his chair is, in fact, a wheelchair. It's unusual to see a disabled person in art without attention being drawn to their disability. In Fellows at Dessert , Hawking is simply a disabled person shown among a group of professional peers.

In the popular imagination, Hawking was soon to soar above those peers. In 1993 he played a hologram of himself in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation , beating holographic re-creations of Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein in a hand of poker organised by the super-intelligent android Data.

In the 1995 Halloween episode of The Simpsons , Homer Simpson causes a rupture in space-time and wails 'I wish I read that book by that wheelchair guy'.

By the mid-1990s, just ten years after Yolanda Sonnabend had painted him as a relatively obscure scientist, Hawking had become so synonymous with science, with genius, and with disability that the writers of The Simpsons could call him 'that wheelchair guy' and be assured their audience would know who they meant, while the writers of Star Trek could credibly assert that Hawking would still be regarded as one of 'the greatest minds in history' 300 years in the future.

When Hawking sat for a portrait by Frederick Cuming in 2005, he was as well-known as any scientist since Einstein.

Stephen William Hawking 2005

Frederick Cuming (1930–2022)

Looking at Cuming's picture – which, like Sonnabend's, is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery – we feel we have caught Hawking in a private moment. Unlike the straight-ahead focus of his eyes in the Gopal-Chowdhury picture, here he is intently looking away. This is a painting that compels us to wonder what its subject is thinking, which allows it to play with stereotypes about disability. Once we try to imagine what Stephen Hawking could be thinking, our focus is not on the limitations of his body compared to ours, but on the limitations of our minds compared to his.

Tai-Shan Schierenberg 's portrait of Hawking was painted in 2008, the year Hawking stopped using his hand to control his speech synthesiser and began using muscles in his cheek .

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) 2008

Tai-Shan Schierenberg (b.1962)

In the picture, which is held by the Royal Society, we see that he has lost some of the ability to make easily interpretable facial expressions.

At first, the viewer might think that this painting, like the one by Cuming, shows Hawking deep in thought. Or even that it shows him lost in that abject isolation it's widely believed his MND imposed upon him. But when we look at his eyes we see they are looking directly at us, as alert as they are in the Gopal-Chowdhury portrait from 19 years earlier. Again, we could be students looking to him for insights. In a sense, by 2008, the whole world was.

As Hawking became more and more renowned, his image in the media was – both metaphorically and literally – drawn in broad strokes. His scientific work had to be reported in reductive ways to make sense to the average person, but reductive ideas about him often led to reductive ideas about his disabilities. When Hawking died in 2018, numerous newspaper and internet cartoons were devoted to his death, with some crassly showing him walking away from his wheelchair in ways that proved immediately controversial among many of us who use wheelchairs .

The implication in these simple cartoons often seemed to be that a death that let someone 'walk free' was preferable to life in a wheelchair.

The portraits by Sonnabend, Gopal-Chowdhury, Cuming and Schierenberg stand in contrast to such simplistic pictures. Their great value is in their commitment to depicting both Hawking and disability with nuance and depth.

Scott Jordan Harris, arts journalist

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Stephen Hawking

• Occupation: Scientist and astrophysicist
• Born: January 8, 1942 in Oxford, United Kingdom
• Died: March 14, 2018 in Cambridge, United Kingdom
• Best known for: Hawking radiation and the book A Brief History of Time

• He was born on the 300th anniversary of the death of the famous scientist Galileo .
• He has been married twice and has three children.
• Stephen has been on several TV shows including The Simpsons and the Big Bang Theory .
• The book A Brief History of Time only has one equation, Einstein's famous E = mc 2 .
• Hawking has co-written several children's books with his daughter Lucy including George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt and George and the Big Bang .
• He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.
• He hoped to travel to space one day and trained with NASA on their zero gravity aircraft.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

Character Sketch of Stephen Hawking from The Lesson a Visit to Cambridge

Based on “A Visit to Cambridge,” Stephen Hawking emerges as a multifaceted figure, defying the limitations of physical constraints with brilliance, humor, and an unyielding spirit.

Intellectual Titan:

• Profound understanding:  Hawking’s mastery of complex scientific concepts is evident, even through his synthesized voice. He speaks of black holes and the origins of the universe with remarkable ease, showcasing the depth and breadth of his knowledge.
• Passion for scientific inquiry:  Despite his illness, Hawking remains driven by a thirst for understanding the universe. He continues to theorize and explore, constantly pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.

Resilient Spirit:

• Triumph over adversity:  Confined to a wheelchair and relying on technology to communicate, Hawking’s physical limitations are undeniable. Yet, he demonstrates an unwavering determination, a testament to his inner strength and resilience.
• Humor as a shield:  Hawking uses humor to disarm and connect. His jokes about his own condition not only offer lighthearted moments but also reveal his courage and ability to find joy in the face of adversity.

Inspirational Figure:

• Role model for perseverance:  Hawking’s life story is a beacon of hope, demonstrating that extraordinary achievements can be made even in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. He inspires others to push beyond limitations and chase their dreams.
• Humanity beyond circumstance:  Despite his celebrity status, Hawking remains down-to-earth and approachable. He readily interacts with the narrator, a young student, showcasing his humility and respect for others.

A Contradiction with Depth:

Hawking is a study in contrasts. He is both a towering intellect and a physically vulnerable figure, a scientific pioneer with a disarming sense of humor. Through his complex persona, “A Visit to Cambridge” offers a glimpse into the mind and spirit of a man who defied expectations and continues to inspire with his brilliance and resilience.

Remember, this is just a starting point, and you can add more details to the sketch based on the specific aspects of the story you want to highlight.

Rahul Kumar is a passionate educator, writer, and subject matter expert in the field of education and professional development. As an author on CoursesXpert, Rahul Kumar’s articles cover a wide range of topics, from various courses, educational and career guidance.

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