Stephen Hawking was perhaps the most famous physicist since Einstein. Diagnosed with motor neurone disease (ALS) at age 21 and given two years to live, he went on to revolutionise our understanding of black holes and the Big Bang over a 55-year career from his wheelchair at Cambridge. His greatest discovery — "Hawking radiation" — showed that black holes are not truly black. They slowly emit thermal radiation due to quantum effects near the event horizon, and eventually evaporate entirely. This was the first result to connect quantum mechanics with general relativity — arguably the deepest open problem in all of physics. His popular science book "A Brief History of Time" (1988) sold 25 million copies in 40 languages and remained on the Sunday Times bestseller list for a record 237 weeks. He communicated entirely via a cheek muscle activating a speech synthesiser, yet lectured at the world's finest universities and appeared on The Simpsons.
Key Contribution
Proved black holes emit radiation (Hawking radiation) — unifying quantum mechanics and general relativity for the first time. Co-developed singularity theorems with Roger Penrose, proving the Big Bang began from an infinite density point. "A Brief History of Time" brought cosmology to 25 million readers in 40 languages.
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.”
— Stephen Hawking
Works & Achievements
- ✦Hawking Radiation — black holes emit thermal radiation (1974)
- ✦Penrose–Hawking Singularity Theorems
- ✦A Brief History of Time (1988) — 25M copies, 40 languages, 237 weeks on Sunday Times bestseller list
- ✦The Universe in a Nutshell (2001)
- ✦Director of Research, DAMTP, Cambridge
- ✦Presidential Medal of Freedom (2009)