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Stephen Hawking is a brilliant scientist and bestselling author, currently a Lucasian professor at Cambridge University. He studied physics at Oxford and theoretical cosmology at Cambridge, where he developed ALS. He is known for his work on black holes and unifying General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory. He has been married twice and has three children. He attempted to float in zero gravity and planned a suborbital spaceflight with Virgin Galactic in 2009.
Stephen Hawking is said to be one of the most brilliant scientific minds of our time. Undoubtedly a man of great genius, Hawking is a Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University – a post once held by Sir Isaac Newton – and a bestselling author. His book, A Brief History of Time, was so popular that it remained on the British bestseller list for 237 weeks.
Stephen Hawking was born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England. He attended University College, Oxford, where he studied physics. He received his degree with honors in Natural Sciences after three years. Hawking then went on to study theoretical cosmology at Cambridge. It was in Cambridge that the first symptoms of the disease appeared which would eventually render him immobile. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) inevitably changed Hawking’s life.
Contrary to popular belief, however, this disease did not cause him to lose his voice. This development was caused by pneumonia, which he contracted during a visit to CERN in Geneva in 1985. The pneumonia made it so difficult for him to breathe that a tracheostomy was required. The operation rendered him mute.
Stephen Hawking’s main fields of research are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity. In his own words, he is more interested in examining the fundamental laws that make the universe what it is. He advocated the unification of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and Quantum Theory and is best known for his study of black holes. In 1974, he postulated what is now known as “Hawking radiation” by calculating that black holes create and thermally emit subatomic particles.
He married Jane Wilde in 1965 and subsequently had three children. The couple separated in 1991 and Hawking then married his longtime nurse Elaine Maison in 1995. Incidentally, Elaine Maison’s first husband David Maison was the man who designed Hawking’s first speech synthesizer , without which Hawking would not have had adequate means of conversation. Stephen Hawking filed for divorce from Elaine Maison in 2006.
Professor Stephen Hawking is the first quadriplegic to attempt to float in zero gravity. This attempt was done in part to prepare for a planned suborbital spaceflight that would take place in 2009 with Virgin Galactic. Billionaire Richard Branson has pledged to pay all expenses of the flight.
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