Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Stephen Hawking 1942-2018

Stephen Hawking, the British physicist known for his work with black holes and relativity, died today at his home in Cambridge, England.  He had suffered for most adult life with a rare slowly progressing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Hawking was born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford, U.K. to Frank Hawking and the former Isobel Walker, who had both attended the University of Oxford.  The family lived in London, but moved to St. Albans, Hertfordshire when Frank Hawking became the head of the parasitology division at the National Institute for Medical Research.  Hawking attended schools in London, Radlett and St. Albans before entering his parent's alma mater.  After graduating from Oxford, he obtained his PhD from Trinity Hall, a college within the University of Cambridge.

During his career, Hawking worked on the singularity theorem, black hole dynamics, quantum mechanics, quantum gravity, the arrows of time, and the loss of information when something enters a black hole.  One of his most noted ideas was that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation, which results in them eventually evaporating.  He authored or co-authored more than 15 books, including the best-seller A Brief History Of Time.  Because of ALS, Hawking needed to use crutches, and later a wheelchair.  He would eventually require a speech-generating device.

Hawking was married twice, first to Jane Wilde, with whom he had three children, and later to Elaine Mason.  Both marriages ended in divorce.  He is survived by his children Robert, Lucy (with whom he wrote a series of children's fiction books), and Timothy.

In an interesting coincidence, Hawking's death happened on pi day (3/14), which is also the birthday of Albert Einstein.  Hawking was reluctant to believe in an afterlife, but if he's wrong, the conversation those two might be having would be interesting indeed.

Read more at Scientific American, BBC News, the Independent, Reuters and The Guardian.

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