STEPHEN HAWKING
. STEPHEN HAWKING
Stephen William Hawking (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge (but intends to retire from this post in 2009), a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and the distinguished research chair at Waterloo's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include the runaway bestseller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a condition that has progressed over the years and has left him almost completely paralysed.
And he’s done most of this work while confined to a wheelchair, brought on by the progressive neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a post once held by Isaac Newton.
In the late 1960s, Hawking proved that if general relativity is true and the universe is expanding, a singularity must have occurred at the birth of the universe. In 1974 he first recognized a truly remarkable property of black holes, objects from which nothing was supposed to be able to escape. By taking into account quantum mechanics, he was able to show that black holes can radiate energy as particles are created in their vicinity. But perhaps his most impressive feat was writing the international bestseller A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME. The book spent more than four years on the London Sunday Times bestseller list—the longest run for any book in history.
