Genius of our age dies
Professor Stephen Hawking, whose brilliant mind ranged across time and space although his body was paralysed by disease, has died, a family spokesman said early yesterday. He was 76. The best-known theoretical physicist of his time, Hawking (above) wrote so lucidly of the mysteries of space, time and black holes his book.
PROFESSOR Stephen Hawking, whose brilliant mind ranged across time and space although his body was paralysed by disease, has died, a family spokesman said early yesterday. He was 76.
The best-known theoretical physicist of his time, Hawking wrote so lucidly of the mysteries of space, time and black holes that his book, A Brief History of Time, became an international bestseller, making him one of science’s biggest celebrities since Albert Einstein.
“He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years,” his children Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement.
“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 forever.”
Even though his body was attacked by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, when Hawking was 21, he stunned doctors by living with the normally fatal illness for more than 50 years. A severe attack of pneumonia in 1985 left him breathing through a tube, forcing him to communicate through an electronic voice synthesiser that gave him his distinctive robotic monotone.
But he continued his scientific work, appeared on television and married for a second time.
As one of Isaac Newton’s successors as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, Hawking was involved in the search for the great goal of physics – a “unified theory.”
He followed up A Brief History of Time in 2001 with the more accessible sequel The Universe in a Nutshell.
He made cameo television appearances in The Simpsons and Star Trek and counted among his fans U2 guitarist The Edge, who attended a January 2002 celebration of Hawking’s 60th birthday.
His early life was chronicled in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything, with Eddie Redmayne winning the best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of the scientist.
Hawking was born January 8, 1942, in Oxford, and grew up in London and St. Albans, northwest of the capital. In 1959, he entered Oxford University and then went on to graduate work at Cambridge.
Hawking married Jane Wilde in 1965 and they had three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy.
They divorced in 1991, a split that strained his relationship with their children.
He married his one-time nurse Elaine Mason four years later.