Professor Stephen Hawking is dead at 76

Professor Stephen Hawking is dead at 76

Professor Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76, a spokesman for his family said. 

The famed theoretical physicist died peacefully at his Cambrdige, England home early Wednesday. 

In a statement Professor Hawking's children, Lucy, Robert and Tim said: 'We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today. 

'He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years.'

The family went on to boast about Hawking's 'courage and persistence'  that inspired people across the world.

'He once said, 'It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.' We will miss him forever.' 

The best-known theoretical physicist of his time, Hawking wrote so lucidly of the mysteries of space, time and black holes that his book, 'A Brief History of Time,' became an international bestseller, making him one of science's biggest celebrities since Albert Einstein.

Even though his body was attacked by motor neurone disease when Hawking was 21, he stunned doctors by living with the normally fatal illness for more than 50 years.

Hawking was born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England.

His family had moved to Oxford from north London to escape the threat of World War II rockets.

When he was 8 they moved St. Albans, a town about 20 miles north of the capital, where he would attend St Albans School and later University College, Oxford where his father attended.

His prodigious talent and unorthodox study methods meant he used few books and made no notes but could still solve problems like no other students.

He wanted to study mathematics but the subject was not available at the college so he chose physics instead.

In 1962 he went to the University of Cambridge's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics to conduct research in cosmology.

In 1965 he received his PhD with his thesis 'Properties of Expanding Universes' and would soon publish his first academic book The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time.

When he was 21 he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a nerve system disease that weakens muscles and impacts physical function.

Stephen Hawking was one of the world's most acclaimed cosmologists, a medical miracle, and probably the galaxy's most unlikely superstar celebrity.

After being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease in 1964 at the age of 22, he was given just a few years to live.

Yet against all odds Professor Hawking celebrated his 70th birthday nearly half a century later as one of the most brilliant and famous scientists of the modern age.

Despite being wheelchair-bound, almost completely paralysed and unable to speak except through his trademark voice synthesiser, he wrote a plethora of scientific papers that earned him comparisons with Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton.

At the same time he embraced popular culture with enthusiasm and humour, appearing in TV cartoon The Simpsons, starring in Star Trek and providing the voice-over for a British Telecom commercial that was later sampled on rock band Pink Floyd's The Division Bell album.

His rise to fame and relationship with his first wife, Jane, was dramatised in a 2014 film, The Theory Of Everything, in which Eddie Redmayne put in an Oscar-winning performance as the physicist battling with a devastating illness.

He was best known for his work on black holes, the mysterious infinitely dense regions of compressed matter where the normal laws of physics break down, which dominated the whole of his academic life.

Prof Hawking's crowning achievement was his prediction in the 1970s that black holes can emit energy, despite the classical view that nothing - not even light - can escape their gravity.

Hawking Radiation, based on mathematical concepts arising from quantum mechanics, the branch of science that deals with the weird world of sub-atomic particles, eventually causes black holes to 'evaporate' and vanish, according to the theory.

Had the existence of Hawking Radiation been proved by astronomers or physicists, it would almost certainly have earned Prof Hawking a Nobel Prize. As it turned out, the greatest scientific accolade eluded him until the time of this death.

Born in Oxford on January 8 1942 - 300 years after the death of astronomer Galileo Galilei - Prof Hawking grew up in St Albans.

He had a difficult time at the local public school and was persecuted as a 'swot' who was more interested in jazz, classical music and debating than sport and pop.

Although not top of the class, he was good at maths and 'chaotically enthusiastic in chemistry'.