Dayton Daily News

Legendary physicist Stephen Hawking dies

Science icon wrote extensivel­y about time and space.

- By Robert Barr

Immobilize­d by ALS for more than 50 years, the British scientist was neverthele­ss the leading theoretici­an of his time.

Stephen Hawking, LONDON — whose brilliant mind ranged across time and space though his body was paralyzed by disease, died Wednesday. He was 76.

Hawking died at his home in Cambridge, England, according to a statement by the University of Cambridge.

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 best-seller, 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. “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 synthesize­r 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.”

Such a theory would resolve the contradict­ions between Einstein’s theory of relativity, which describes the laws of gravity that govern the motion of large objects like planets, and the quantum mechanics theory, which deals with the world of subatomic particles.

For Hawking, the search was almost a religious quest — he said finding a “theory of everything” would allow mankind to “know the mind of God.”

“A complete, consistent unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understand­ing of the events around us, and of our own existence,” he wrote in “A Brief History of Time.”

In later years, though, he suggested a unified theory might not exist.

He followed up “A Brief History of Time” in 2001 with the more accessible sequel “The Universe in a Nutshell,” updating readers on concepts like super gravity, naked singularit­ies and the possibilit­y of an 11-dimensiona­l universe.

Hawking said belief in a God who intervenes in the universe “to make sure the good guys win or get rewarded in the next life” was wishful thinking.

“But one can’t help asking the question: Why does the universe exist?” he said in 1991. “I don’t know an operationa­l way to give the question or the answer, if there is one, a meaning. But it bothers me.”

The combinatio­n of his best-selling book and his almost total disability — for a while he could use a few fingers, later he could only tighten the muscles on his face — made him one of science’s most recognizab­le faces.

He made cameo appearance­s in “The Big Bang Theory,” “The Simpsons” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation” 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. The film focused still more attention on Hawking’s remarkable achievemen­ts.

Some colleagues credited that celebrity with generating new enthusiasm for science.

His achievemen­ts and his longevity helped prove to many that even the most severe disabiliti­es need not stop patients from living.

Richard Green, of the Motor Neurone Disease Associatio­n — the British name for ALS — said Hawking met the classic definition of the disease, as “the perfect mind trapped in an imperfect body.” He said Hawking had been an inspiratio­n to people with the disease for many years. Although it could take him minutes to compose answers to even simple questions Hawking said the disability did not impair his work. It certainly did little to dampen his ambition to physically experience space himself: Hawking savored small bursts of weightless­ness in 2007 when he was flown aboard a jet that made repeated dives to simulate zero-gravity.

Hawking had hoped to leave Earth’s atmosphere altogether someday, a trip he often recommende­d to the rest of the planet’s inhabitant­s.

“In the long run the human race should not have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet,” Hawking said in 2008. “I just hope we can avoid dropping the basket until then.”

Hawking first earned prominence for his theoretica­l work on black holes. Disproving the belief that black holes are so dense that nothing could escape their gravitatio­nal pull, he showed that black holes leak a tiny bit of light and other types of radiation, now known as “Hawking radiation.”

“It came as a complete surprise,” said Gary Horowitz, a theoretica­l physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “It really was quite revolution­ary.”

Horowitz said the find helped move scientists one step closer to cracking the unified theory.

Hawking’s other major scientific contributi­on was to cosmology, the study of the universe’s origin and evolution. Working with Jim Hartle of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Hawking proposed in 1983 that space and time might have no beginning and no end. “Asking what happens before the Big Bang is like asking for a point one mile north of the North Pole,” he said.

In 2004, he announced that he had revised his previous view that objects sucked into black holes simply disappeare­d, perhaps to enter an alternate universe. Instead, he said he believed objects could be spit out of black holes in a mangled form.

That new theory capped his three-decade struggle to explain a paradox in scientific thinking: How can objects really “disappear” inside a black hole and leave no trace, as he long believed, when subatomic theory says informatio­n can be transforme­d but never fully destroyed?

Hawking was born Jan. 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.

Signs of illness appeared in his first year of graduate school, and he was diagnosed with ALS. The disease usually kills within three to five years.

According to John Boslough, author of “Stephen Hawking’s Universe,” Hawking became deeply depressed. But as it became apparent that he was not going to die soon, his spirits recovered and he bore down on his work. Brian Dickie, director of research at the Motor Neurone Disease Associatio­n, said only 5 percent of those diagnosed with ALS survive for 10 years or longer. Hawking, he added, “really is at the extreme end of the scale when it comes to survival.”

Hawking married Jane Wilde in 1965 and they had three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy.

Jane cared for Hawking for 20 years, until a grant from the United States paid for the 24-hour care he required.

He was inducted into the Royal Society in 1974 and received the Albert Einstein Award in 1978. In 1989, Queen Elizabeth II made him a Companion of Honor, one of the highest distinctio­ns she can bestow.

He whizzed about Cambridge at surprising speed — usually with nurses or teaching assistants in his wake — traveled and lectured widely, and appeared to enjoy his fame. He retired from his chair as Lucasian Professor in 2009 and took up a research position with the Perimeter Institute for Theoretica­l Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

Hawking divorced Jane in 1991, an acrimoniou­s split that strained his relationsh­ip with their children. Writing in her autobiogra­phical “Music to Move the Stars,” she said the strain of caring for Hawking for nearly three decades had left her feeling like “a brittle, empty shell.” Hawking married his onetime nurse Elaine Mason four years later, but the relationsh­ip was dogged by rumors of abuse.

Police investigat­ed in 2004 after newspapers reported that he’d been beaten, suffering injuries including a broken wrist, gashes to the face and a cut lip, and was left stranded in his garden on the hottest day of the year.

Hawking called the charges “completely false.” Police found no evidence of any abuse. Hawking and Mason separated in 2006.

 ??  ??
 ?? SION TOUHIG / GETTY ?? The combinatio­n of Stephen Hawking’s best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time,” and his almost total disability from amyotrophi­c lateral sclerosis made him one of science’s most recognizab­le faces.
SION TOUHIG / GETTY The combinatio­n of Stephen Hawking’s best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time,” and his almost total disability from amyotrophi­c lateral sclerosis made him one of science’s most recognizab­le faces.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States