‘Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet’
STEPHEN HAWKING 1942 –2018
PROF STEPHEN HAWKING will now be enjoying “well-earned peace” after an “extraordinary and courageous” life, Jane, his former wife, said last night, following the death of the theoretical physicist.
Prof Hawking, 76, who was given just two years to live after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease aged 22, defied all expectations to become a father-of-three, bestselling author and a ground-breaking scientist.
The University of Cambridge’s Gonville and Caius College, where he was a fellow for more than half a century, said it was planning a lasting memorial to the man whose proposal that black holes could lose energy and evaporate by sending out “Hawking radiation” changed how physicists viewed the universe.
Ever campaigning, he turned down a knighthood in the Nineties in protest against science funding cuts and more recently was part of a group taking the NHS to judicial review over the commercialisation of health services.
Even in the months before his death, Prof Hawking was still trying to find a grand unified theory which would describe the behaviour of all matter in the universe, from tiny particles to giant gravitybending planets. He continued to lecture widely and hunt for alien civilisations. However, in the past fortnight his health had begun to fail, and he was confined to his bed at home on a respirator. Yesterday his family announced he had passed away peacefully.
Jane Hawking, who was married to the physicist for 30 years, said: “I am glad to be able to say that he died peacefully in the comfort of his own home. The peace that he has found is well earned after such an extraordinary and courageous life, but we shall feel his loss keenly for a long time.”
Lucy, Robert and Tim, his children, paid tribute to the “great scientist and extraordinary man, whose work and legacy will live on for many years”.
The Queen sent condolences to Prof Hawking’s family, while Theresa May described him as a “brilliant and extraordinary mind”.
Although his illness left him unable to walk or talk without a computerassisted device, he continued to work, and in 1988 published the book A Brief History of Time, which went on to sell more than 10million copies. Prof Lord Rees of Ludlow, the Astronomer Royal, said: “His name will live in the annals of science; millions have had their cosmic horizons widened by his books, and even more, around the world, have been inspired by a unique example of achievement against all odds – a manifestation of amazing willpower and determination.”
Eddie Redmayne, the actor who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Prof Hawking in the film The Theory of Everything, said the world had “lost a truly beautiful mind”.