The world of science is grieving at the death of renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking, who died at the age of 76 on March 13, 2018.
“We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today… He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years,” professor Hawking’s children, Lucy, Robert, and Tim said in a statement carried by the Britain’s Press Association news agency.
Hawking is known for coming up with the biggest contribution in the fields of cosmology.
He is also the genius behind the concepts of general relativity and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes.
In the 60s and 70s, Hawking made inventive ideas and theorems about singularities that can be found inside the center of a black hole. He also made the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, known today as the Hawking radiation.
Moreover, Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Throughout his life, he has been recognized several times for his academic contributions in the world of science, including the Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), a lifetime membership in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
His achievements didn’t end with ideas, though. He is also an influential author who wrote the “Brief History of Time,” which is considered as one of the greatest books he has ever published, wherein he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general.
At the age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with a slow-progressing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that gradually paralysed him over decades.
Throughout his life, he was only able to communicate using a single cheek muscle attached to a speech-generating device. After suffering long from the disease, he is said to have died peacefully at his home in Cambridge, London.
Hawking is said to be the “greatest minds in Physics since Albert Einstein.”
