Wednesday, March 14, 2018

A Brief History of Time

English theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen William Hawking, born in Oxford on January 8, 1942 has died in Cambridge on March 14, 2018 aged 76. As Michael McGowan writes in The Guardian obituary, “[Hawking] combined a soaring intellect and a mischievous sense of humour that made him an icon of both academia and popular culture”.
In 1963 Hawking was diagnosed with a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as motor neurone disease or Lou Gehrig’s disease, that gradually paralysed him over half a century. Throughout his life, he was still able to communicate using a single cheek muscle attached to a speech-generating device.

Stephen William Hawking in a scene from Errol Morris’s documentary A Brief History of Time (1992). Photo: Triton/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock.

It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.

Stephen William Hawking

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