Master of the universe
Tributes to a true genius
HE was trapped in a wheelchair. But Professor Stephen Hawking was an explorer in every sense of the word.
Through his thoughts, he opened up new worlds to humanity.
It would have been easy for the world-renowned theoretical physicist’s life to slip into despair but instead, Hawking overcame his debilitating life sentence and spent his 76 years broadening the horizons of our universe before his departure yesterday.
His children Lucy, Robert and Tim said in a statement: “We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today ... 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.”
With those words the world discovered it had lost a generation’s greatest mind.
If you hadn’t seen or heard the wheelchair-bound, electronic-voiced genius on documentaries, the news or in his three appearances on The Simpsons, you’d probably know him through 2014 movie The Theory of Everything.
Not since famed physicist Albert Einstein has anyone had the impact on the world of physics that Hawking had.
He strove to discover how Einstein’s seminal theory of relativity – which defined the nature of space and time – meshed with our modern understanding of quantum theory: the behaviour of the chaotic, infinitesimally small building blocks of the universe. It is mind-bending stuff. Hawking had the mind for it. But he had to beat the odds to apply it.
“Through it all, of course, his illness made his achievements near-superhuman,” says fellow astrophysicist and Swinburne University science communicator Dr Alan Duffy. “How he manipulated Einstein’s equations in his mind when he could no longer hold a pen I can’t even begin to imagine.”
In Hawking’s own words, he felt “somewhat of a tragic character” after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – Lou Gehrig’s disease – at age 21.
He was given no more than five years to live.
He lasted more than 50.
The black hole of despair beckoned. But Hawking found a way to escape.
He returned to work. He married Jane Wilde. He had three children.
And he published ideas that shook our understanding of the universe.
“Professor Hawking was an inspiration to me to become – not just a scientist – but a communicator of that science,” Dr Duffy says. “His work as a cosmologist, and discoveries in black hole physics were legendary.
“He was also wonderfully funny with a fantastic media savviness that propelled him into A-list celebrity stardom.
“While his many contributions will live on, there is no doubt that science and the wider world is the poorer for his passing.”
Born in Oxford in 1942 to a pair of Oxford University graduates, Hawking’s struggles with school led him to build his own computer out of scrap and make it capable of solving simple math problems. Eventually, he graduated with honours in natural science.
His mother Isobel said: “Stephen always had a strong sense of wonder, and I could see that the stars would draw him.”