Stephen Hawking Biography (1942-2018)

By Nola Taylor Redd March 14, 2018 Science & Astronomy

Professor Stephen Hawking speaks about "Why We Should Go into Space" for the NASA Lecture Series, April
21, 2008.
(Image: © NASA/Paul Alers)

Stephen Hawking was regarded as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history.
His work on the origins and structure of the universe, from the Big Bang to black holes,
revolutionized the field, while his best-selling books have appealed to readers who may not
have Hawking's scientific background. Hawking died on March 14, 2018.
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 In this brief biography, we look at Hawking's education and career — ranging from his
discoveries to the popular books he's written — and the disease that robbed him of mobility
and speech.

A challenging life
British cosmologist Stephen William Hawking was born in England on Jan. 8, 1942 — 300
years to the day after the death of the astronomer Galileo Galilei. He attended University
College, Oxford, where he studied physics, despite his father's urging to focus on medicine.
Hawking went on to Cambridge to research cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole.

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In early 1963, just shy of his 21st birthday, Hawking was diagnosed with motor neuron
disease, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS). He was not expected to live more than two years. Completing his doctorate did not
appear likely. Yet, Hawking defied the odds, not only attaining his Ph.D. but also forging
new roads into the understanding of the universe in the decades since.
As the disease spread, Hawking became less mobile and began using a wheelchair. Talking
grew more challenging and, in 1985, an emergency tracheotomy caused his total loss of
speech. A speech-generating device constructed at Cambridge, combined with a software
program, served as his electronic voice, allowing Hawking to select his words by moving the
muscles in his cheek.

Just before his diagnosis, Hawking met Jane Wilde, and the two were married in 1965. The
couple had three children before separating. Hawking remarried in 1995 but divorced in
2006.

A brilliant mind

Hawking continued at Cambridge after his graduation, serving as a research fellow and later
as a professional fellow. In 1974, he was inducted into the Royal Society, a worldwide
fellowship of scientists. In 1979, he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
Cambridge, the most famous academic chair in the world (the second holder was Sir Isaac
Newton, also a member of the Royal Society).
Over the course of his career, Hawking studied the basic laws governing the universe. He
proposed that, since the universe boasts a beginning — the Big Bang — it likely will have an
ending. Working with fellow cosmologist Roger Penrose, he demonstrated that Albert
Einstein's Theory of General Relativity suggests that space and time began at the birth of the
universe and ends within black holes, which implies that Einstein's theory and quantum
theory must be united.
Using the two theories together, Hawking also determined that black holes are not totally
dark but instead emit radiation. He predicted that, following the Big Bang, black holes as tiny
as protons were created, governed by both general relativity and quantum mechanics.
[PHOTOS: Black Holes of the Universe]

Professor Stephen Hawking experiences the freedom of weightlessness during a zero gravity flight.
(Image credit: ZERO-G)
In 2014, Hawking revised his theory, even writing that " there are no black holes" — at least,
in the way that cosmologists traditionally understand them. His theory removed the existence
of an "event horizon," the point where nothing can escape. Instead, he proposed that there
would be an "apparent horizon" that would alter according to quantum changes within the
black hole. But the theory remains controversial. [Portrait of Genius: Stephen Hawking
Exhibit Photos]
Hawking also proposed that the universe itself has no boundary, much like the Earth.
Although the planet is finite, one can travel around it (and through the universe) infinitely,
never encountering a wall that would be described as the "end."

Hawking's books
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 Hawking was a popular writer. His first book, "A Brief History of Time" (10th anniversary
edition: Bantam, 1998) was first published in 1988 and became an international best seller. In
it, Hawking aimed to communicate questions about the birth and death of the universe to the
layperson.
Hawking went on to write other nonfiction books aimed at nonscientists. These include "A
Briefer History of Time," "The Universe in a Nutshell," "The Grand Design" and "On the
Shoulders of Giants." [Related: 8 Shocking Things We Learned From Stephen Hawking's
Book “Grand Design”]
He and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, also created a fictional series of books for middle school
children on the creation of the universe, including "George and the Big Bang" (Simon &
Schuster, 2012).
Hawking made several television appearances, including a playing hologram of himself on
"Star Trek: The Next Generation" and a cameo on the television show "Big Bang Theory."
PBS presented an educational miniseries titled "Stephen Hawking's Universe," which probes
the theories of the cosmologist.
In 2014, a movie based on Hawking's life was released. Called "The Theory of Everything,"
the film drew praise from Hawking, who said it made him reflect on his own life. "Although
I'm severely disabled, I have been successful in my scientific work," Hawking wrote on
Facebook in November 2014. "I travel widely and have been to Antarctica and Easter Island,
down in a submarine and up on a zero-gravity flight. One day, I hope to go into space."
Stephen Hawking quotes
Hawking's quotes range from notable to poetic to controversial. Among them:

 "Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What
is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual
approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of
why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the
bother of existing? "
 "All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find
scientific answers to them. If, like me, you have looked at the stars, and tried to make sense
of what you see, you too have started to wonder what makes the universe exist."
 "Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of
nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in."
 "The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an
arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be
divinely inspired. "
 "We should seek the greatest value of our action."
 "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."
 "Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change."
 "It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value. "
 "One cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem."
 "It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven't
done badly. People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining."
 "I relish the rare opportunity I've been given to live the life of the mind. But I know I need
my body and that it will not last forever."
A list of Hawking quotes would be incomplete without mentioning some of his more
controversial statements.

He frequently said that humans must leave Earth if we wished to survive.

"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next
thousand or million...Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward-looking
on planet Earth, but to spread out into space." — August 2010

"[W]e must … continue to go into space for the future of humanity…I don't think we will
survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet." — November 2016

"We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds. It is time to
explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from
ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth." — June 2017

He also said time travel should be possible, and that we should explore space for the romance
of it.
"Time travel used to be thought of