British theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author (1942–2018)
People connected to Stephen Hawking
A body that stopped working framed a mind that rewrote the rules of black holes and time itself—then spent decades proving you could be both the world's most uncompromising physicist and its most unlikely bestseller.
Born in Oxford in 1942 into a family of physicians, Hawking took a first-class BA in physics at University College, Oxford, in 1959, then moved to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, for a PhD in applied mathematics and theoretical physics. At 21, in 1963, he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease—a slow-progressing form that paralysed him over decades and eventually left him speaking through a cheek-muscle-driven device. His collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems and his theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation (Hawking radiation) met initial controversy b…
Sourced, dated quotes from Stephen Hawking
For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen.
What I have done is to show that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science.
We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.
Einstein is the only figure in the physical sciences with a stature that can be compared with Newton.
There ought to be something very special about the boundary conditions of the universe and what can be more special than that there is no boundary?
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