stephen hawking disability biography

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking was a scientist known for his work with black holes and relativity, and the author of popular science books like 'A Brief History of Time.'

(1942-2018)

Who Was Stephen Hawking?

Stephen Hawking was a British scientist, professor and author who performed groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology, and whose books helped to make science accessible to everyone.

Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford, England. His birthday was also the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo — long a source of pride for the noted physicist.

The eldest of Frank and Isobel Hawking's four children, Hawking was born into a family of thinkers.

His Scottish mother earned her way into Oxford University in the 1930s — a time when few women were able to go to college. His father, another Oxford graduate, was a respected medical researcher with a specialty in tropical diseases.

Hawking's birth came at an inopportune time for his parents, who didn't have much money. The political climate was also tense, as England was dealing with World War II and the onslaught of German bombs in London, where the couple was living as Frank Hawking undertook research in medicine.

In an effort to seek a safer place, Isobel returned to Oxford to have the couple's first child. The Hawkings would go on to have two other children, Mary and Philippa. And their second son, Edward, was adopted in 1956.

The Hawkings, as one close family friend described them, were an "eccentric" bunch. Dinner was often eaten in silence, each of the Hawkings intently reading a book. The family car was an old London taxi, and their home in St. Albans was a three-story fixer-upper that never quite got fixed. The Hawkings also housed bees in the basement and produced fireworks in the greenhouse.

In 1950, Hawking's father took work to manage the Division of Parasitology at the National Institute of Medical Research, and spent the winter months in Africa doing research. He wanted his eldest child to go into medicine, but at an early age, Hawking showed a passion for science and the sky.

That was evident to his mother, who, along with her children, often stretched out in the backyard on summer evenings to stare up at the stars. "Stephen always had a strong sense of wonder," she remembered. "And I could see that the stars would draw him."

Hawking was also frequently on the go. With his sister Mary, Hawking, who loved to climb, devised different entry routes into the family home. He loved to dance and also took an interest in rowing, becoming a team coxswain in college.

Early in his academic life, Hawking, while recognized as bright, was not an exceptional student. During his first year at St. Albans School , he was third from the bottom of his class.

But Hawking focused on pursuits outside of school; he loved board games, and he and a few close friends created new games of their own. During his teens, Hawking, along with several friends, constructed a computer out of recycled parts for solving rudimentary mathematical equations.

Hawking entered University College at the University of Oxford at the age of 17. Although he expressed a desire to study mathematics, Oxford didn't offer a degree in that specialty, so Hawking gravitated toward physics and, more specifically, cosmology.

By his own account, Hawking didn't put much time into his studies. He would later calculate that he averaged about an hour a day focusing on school. And yet he didn't really have to do much more than that. In 1962, he graduated with honors in natural science and went on to attend Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge for a Ph.D. in cosmology.

In 1968, Hawking became a member of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. The next few years were a fruitful time for Hawking and his research. In 1973, he published his first, highly-technical book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time , with G.F.R. Ellis.

In 1979, Hawking found himself back at the University of Cambridge, where he was named to one of teaching's most renowned posts, dating back to 1663: the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S STEPHEN HAWKING FACT CARD

Wife and Children

At a New Year's party in 1963, Hawking met a young languages undergraduate named Jane Wilde. They were married in 1965. The couple gave birth to a son, Robert, in 1967, and a daughter, Lucy, in 1970. A third child, Timothy, arrived in 1979.

In 1990, Hawking left his wife Jane for one of his nurses, Elaine Mason. The two were married in 1995. The marriage put a strain on Hawking's relationship with his own children, who claimed Elaine closed off their father from them.

In 2003, nurses looking after Hawking reported their suspicions to police that Elaine was physically abusing her husband. Hawking denied the allegations, and the police investigation was called off. In 2006, Hawking and Elaine filed for divorce.

In the following years, the physicist reportedly grew closer to his family. He reconciled with Jane, who had remarried. And he published five science-themed novels for children with his daughter, Lucy.

Stephen Hawking: Books

Over the years, Hawking wrote or co-wrote a total of 15 books. A few of the most noteworthy include:

'A Brief History of Time'

In 1988 Hawking catapulted to international prominence with the publication of A Brief History of Time . The short, informative book became an account of cosmology for the masses and offered an overview of space and time, the existence of God and the future.

The work was an instant success, spending more than four years atop the London Sunday Times' best-seller list. Since its publication, it has sold millions of copies worldwide and been translated into more than 40 languages.

‘The Universe in a Nutshell’

A Brief History of Time also wasn't as easy to understand as some had hoped. So in 2001, Hawking followed up his book with The Universe in a Nutshell , which offered a more illustrated guide to cosmology's big theories.

‘A Briefer History of Time’

In 2005, Hawking authored the even more accessible A Briefer History of Time , which further simplified the original work's core concepts and touched upon the newest developments in the field like string theory.

Together these three books, along with Hawking's own research and papers, articulated the physicist's personal search for science's Holy Grail: a single unifying theory that can combine cosmology (the study of the big) with quantum mechanics (the study of the small) to explain how the universe began.

This kind of ambitious thinking allowed Hawking, who claimed he could think in 11 dimensions, to lay out some big possibilities for humankind. He was convinced that time travel is possible, and that humans may indeed colonize other planets in the future.

‘The Grand Design’

In September 2010, Hawking spoke against the idea that God could have created the universe in his book The Grand Design . Hawking previously argued that belief in a creator could be compatible with modern scientific theories.

In this work, however, he concluded that the Big Bang was the inevitable consequence of the laws of physics and nothing more. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," Hawking said. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist."

The Grand Design was Hawking's first major publication in almost a decade. Within his new work, Hawking set out to challenge Isaac Newton 's belief that the universe had to have been designed by God, simply because it could not have been born from chaos. "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going," Hawking said.

At the age of 21, Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig 's disease). In a very simple sense, the nerves that controlled his muscles were shutting down. At the time, doctors gave him two and a half years to live.

Hawking first began to notice problems with his physical health while he was at Oxford — on occasion he would trip and fall, or slur his speech — but he didn't look into the problem until 1963, during his first year at Cambridge. For the most part, Hawking had kept these symptoms to himself.

But when his father took notice of the condition, he took Hawking to see a doctor. For the next two weeks, the 21-year-old college student made his home at a medical clinic, where he underwent a series of tests.

"They took a muscle sample from my arm, stuck electrodes into me, and injected some radio-opaque fluid into my spine, and watched it going up and down with X-rays, as they tilted the bed," he once said. "After all that, they didn't tell me what I had, except that it was not multiple sclerosis, and that I was an atypical case."

Eventually, however, doctors did diagnose Hawking with the early stages of ALS. It was devastating news for him and his family, but a few events prevented him from becoming completely despondent.

The first of these came while Hawking was still in the hospital. There, he shared a room with a boy suffering from leukemia. Relative to what his roommate was going through, Hawking later reflected, his situation seemed more tolerable.

Not long after he was released from the hospital, Hawking had a dream that he was going to be executed. He said this dream made him realize that there were still things to do with his life.

In a sense, Hawking's disease helped turn him into the noted scientist he became. Before the diagnosis, Hawking hadn't always focused on his studies. "Before my condition was diagnosed, I had been very bored with life," he said. "There had not seemed to be anything worth doing."

With the sudden realization that he might not even live long enough to earn his Ph.D., Hawking poured himself into his work and research.

As physical control over his body diminished (he'd be forced to use a wheelchair by 1969), the effects of his disease started to slow down. Over time, however, Hawking's ever-expanding career was accompanied by an ever-worsening physical state.

How Did Stephen Hawking Talk?

By the mid-1970s, the Hawking family had taken in one of Hawking's graduate students to help manage his care and work. He could still feed himself and get out of bed, but virtually everything else required assistance.

In addition, his speech had become increasingly slurred, so that only those who knew him well could understand him. In 1985 he lost his voice for good following a tracheotomy. The resulting situation required 24-hour nursing care for the acclaimed physicist.

It also put in peril Hawking's ability to do his work. The predicament caught the attention of a California computer programmer, who had developed a speaking program that could be directed by head or eye movement. The invention allowed Hawking to select words on a computer screen that were then passed through a speech synthesizer.

At the time of its introduction, Hawking, who still had use of his fingers, selected his words with a handheld clicker. Eventually, with virtually all control of his body gone, Hawking directed the program through a cheek muscle attached to a sensor.

Through the program, and the help of assistants, Hawking continued to write at a prolific rate. His work included numerous scientific papers, of course, but also information for the non-scientific community.

Hawking's health remained a constant concern—a worry that was heightened in 2009 when he failed to appear at a conference in Arizona because of a chest infection. In April, Hawking, who had already announced he was retiring after 30 years from the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, was rushed to the hospital for being what university officials described as "gravely ill," though he later made a full recovery.

Research on the Universe and Black Holes

In 1974, Hawking's research turned him into a celebrity within the scientific world when he showed that black holes aren't the information vacuums that scientists had thought they were.

In simple terms, Hawking demonstrated that matter, in the form of radiation, can escape the gravitational force of a collapsed star. Another young cosmologist, Roger Penrose, had earlier discovered groundbreaking findings about the fate of stars and the creation of black holes, which tapped into Hawking's own fascination with how the universe began.

The pair then began working together to expand upon Penrose’s earlier work, setting Hawking on a career course marked by awards, notoriety and distinguished titles that reshaped the way the world thinks about black holes and the universe.

When Hawking’s radiation theory was born, the announcement sent shock waves of excitement through the scientific world. Hawking was named a fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 32, and later earned the prestigious Albert Einstein Award, among other honors. He also earned teaching stints at Caltech in Pasadena, California, where he served as visiting professor, and at Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge.

In August 2015, Hawking appeared at a conference in Sweden to discuss new theories about black holes and the vexing "information paradox." Addressing the issue of what becomes of an object that enters a black hole, Hawking proposed that information about the physical state of the object is stored in 2D form within an outer boundary known as the "event horizon." Noting that black holes "are not the eternal prisons they were once thought," he left open the possibility that the information could be released into another universe.

Beginning of the Universe

In a March 2018 interview on Neil deGrasse Tyson 's Star Talk , Hawking addressed the topic of "what was around before the Big Bang" by stating there was nothing around. He said by applying a Euclidean approach to quantum gravity, which replaces real time with imaginary time, the history of the universe becomes like a four-dimensional curved surface, with no boundary.

He suggested picturing this reality by thinking of imaginary time and real time as beginning at the Earth's South Pole, a point of space-time where the normal laws of physics hold; as there is nothing "south" of the South Pole, there was also nothing before the Big Bang.

Hawking and Space Travel

In 2007, at the age of 65, Hawking made an important step toward space travel. While visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, he was given the opportunity to experience an environment without gravity.

Over the course of two hours over the Atlantic, Hawking, a passenger on a modified Boeing 727, was freed from his wheelchair to experience bursts of weightlessness. Pictures of the freely floating physicist splashed across newspapers around the globe.

"The zero-G part was wonderful, and the high-G part was no problem. I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come!" he said.

Hawking was scheduled to fly to the edge of space as one of Sir Richard Branson 's pioneer space tourists. He said in a 2007 statement, "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming , nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."

Stephen Hawking Movie and TV Appearances

If there is such a thing as a rock-star scientist, Hawking embodied it. His forays into popular culture included guest appearances on The Simpsons , Star Trek: The Next Generation , a comedy spoof with comedian Jim Carrey on Late Night with Conan O'Brien , and even a recorded voice-over on the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking."

In 1992, Oscar-winning filmmaker Errol Morris released a documentary about Hawking's life, aptly titled A Brief History of Time . Other TV and movie appearances included:

'The Big Bang Theory'

In 2012, Hawking showed off his humorous side on American television, making a guest appearance on The Big Bang Theory . Playing himself on this popular comedy about a group of young, geeky scientists, Hawking brings the theoretical physicist Sheldon Cooper ( Jim Parsons ) back to Earth after finding an error in his work. Hawking earned kudos for this light-hearted effort.

'The Theory of Everything'

In November of 2014, a film about the life of Hawking and Jane Wilde was released. The Theory of Everything stars Eddie Redmayne as Hawking and encompasses his early life and school days, his courtship and marriage to Wilde, the progression of his crippling disease and his scientific triumphs.

In May 2016, Hawking hosted and narrated Genius , a six-part television series which enlists volunteers to tackle scientific questions that have been asked throughout history. In a statement regarding his series, Hawking said Genius is “a project that furthers my lifelong aim to bring science to the public. It’s a fun show that tries to find out if ordinary people are smart enough to think like the greatest minds who ever lived. Being an optimist, I think they will.”

In 2011, Hawkings had participated in a trial of a new headband-styled device called the iBrain. The device is designed to "read" the wearer's thoughts by picking up "waves of electrical brain signals," which are then interpreted by a special algorithm, according to an article in The New York Times . This device could be a revolutionary aid to people with ALS.

Hawking on AI

In 2014, Hawking, among other top scientists, spoke out about the possible dangers of artificial intelligence, or AI, calling for more research to be done on all of possible ramifications of AI. Their comments were inspired by the Johnny Depp film Transcendence , which features a clash between humanity and technology.

"Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history," the scientists wrote. "Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks." The group warned of a time when this technology would be "outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand."

Hawking reiterated this stance while speaking at a technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal, in November 2017. Noting how AI could potentially make gains in wiping out poverty and disease, but could also lead to such theoretically destructive actions as the development of autonomous weapons, he said, "We cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it."

Hawking and Aliens

In July 2015, Hawking held a news conference in London to announce the launch of a project called Breakthrough Listen. Funded by Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, Breakthrough Listen was created to devote more resources to the discovery of extraterrestrial life.

Breaking the Internet

In October 2017, Cambridge University posted Hawking's 1965 doctoral thesis, "Properties of Expanding Universes," to its website. An overwhelming demand for access promptly crashed the university server, though the document still fielded a staggering 60,000 views before the end of its first day online.

When Did Stephen Hawking Die?

On March 14, 2018, Hawking finally died of ALS, the disease that was supposed to have killed him more than 50 years earlier. A family spokesman confirmed that the iconic scientist died at his home in Cambridge, England.

The news touched many in his field and beyond. Fellow theoretical physicist and author Lawrence Krauss tweeted: "A star just went out in the cosmos. We have lost an amazing human being. Hawking fought and tamed the cosmos bravely for 76 years and taught us all something important about what it truly means to celebrate about being human."

Hawking's children followed with a statement: "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. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humor 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."

Later in the month, it was announced that Hawking's ashes would be interred at Westminster Abbey in London, alongside other scientific luminaries like Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin .

On May 2, 2018, his final paper, titled "A smooth exit from eternal inflation?" was published in the Journal of High Energy Physics . Submitted 10 days before his death, the new report, co-authored by Belgian physicist Thomas Hertog, disputes the idea that the universe will continue to expand.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Stephen Hawking
• Birth Year: 1942
• Birth date: January 8, 1942
• Birth City: Oxford, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Stephen Hawking was a scientist known for his work with black holes and relativity, and the author of popular science books like 'A Brief History of Time.'
• Science and Medicine
• Astrological Sign: Capricorn
• University of Cambridge
• Gonville & Caius College
• Oxford University
• California Institute of Technology
• Interesting Facts
• As an author, Stephen Hawking was best known for his best seller 'A Brief History of Time.'
• At the age of 21, Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease).
• Death Year: 2018
• Death date: March 14, 2018
• Death City: Cambridge, England
• Death Country: United Kingdom

We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right , contact us !

• My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.
• Not only does God definitely play dice, but He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen.
• Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
• Before my condition was diagnosed, I had been very bored with life. There had not seemed to be anything worth doing.
• I believe that life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space.
• Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.
• It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.
• It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.
• 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.
• I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
• Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology, and the fundamental equations of physics.
• People who boast about their I.Q. are losers.
• We shouldn't be surprised that conditions in the universe are suitable for life, but this is not evidence that the universe was designed to allow for life. We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics.

Famous British People

The Real Royal Scheme Depicted in ‘Mary & George’

William Shakespeare

Anya Taylor-Joy

Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales

Kensington Palace Shares an Update on Kate

Amy Winehouse

Prince William

Where in the World Is Kate Middleton?

Christopher Nolan

Emily Blunt

Jane Goodall

share this!

March 14, 2018

Hawking, the man whose brain transcended disability

by Antoine Pollez

Living with motor neurone disease for more than 50 years, Stephen Hawking transcended his disability to becoming one of science's brightest stars, harnessing technology to once again give voice to his ideas.

"My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus," he told the New York Times in 2004.

Hawking was given only a few years to live when he was diagnosed in 1964, but defied the medical profession in typically stubborn fashion.

"I have lived five decades longer than doctors predicted. I have tried to make good use of my time," he said in 2013 autobiographical documentary "Hawking".

"Because every day could be my last, I have the desire to make the most of each and every minute," he added.

But the disease gradually deprived him of mobility and confined him to a wheelchair.

He was eventually left almost completely paralysed and unable to speak, except through a voice synthesiser operated by facial movements.

Despite his handicap, the scientist was one of the first to popularise deep science, utilising a range of media to educate the general public on the secrets of the universe.

Household name

His struggle was portrayed in the 2014 film "The Theory of Everything", which won an Oscar and Golden Globes.

But it was through scientific articles and his 1988 international bestseller "A Brief History of Time" that Hawking was able to communicate his genius and share his discoveries about black holes.

Hawking was an undisputed heavyweight in his field, holding the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics professorship at the University of Cambridge between 1978 and 2009, a post once held by Isaac Newton, the father of universal gravity.

"My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics," he said in Science Digest in 1984.

"Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in."

In recent years, he enthusiastically adopted social media to spread his scientific research, responding to fans with messages signed off "SH".

He boasted 4.1 million Facebook followers, nearly 30,000 on Twitter and amassed millions of followers within hours when he signed up to Chinese social media platform Weibo.

'Keep talking'

Hawking credited the support of his family and friends with giving him the strength to keep up his remarkable pace.

"I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students," he said.

As news broke of his death, Hawking's philosophical musings became particularly poignant.

"For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals," he once said.

"Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination.

"We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking.

"With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking."

Explore further

Feedback to editors

New study finds potential targets at chromosome ends for degenerative disease prevention

6 hours ago

Scientists discover first nitrogen-fixing organelle

Traces of DNA in the stomachs of predatory snails provide new insights into the ecology of placozoans

New study reveals novel approach for combating 'resting' bacteria

7 hours ago

Researchers develop method to extract useful proteins from beer-brewing leftovers

Scientists find blue light makes buildings more deadly to migrating birds

8 hours ago

Ant pheromones may help protect hikers and campers from ticks

Trapped in the middle: Billiards with memory framework leads to mathematical questions

What do bird dreams sound like?

Scientists develop biofortified rice to combat nutrient deficiencies

Relevant physicsforums posts, could you use the moon to reflect sunlight onto a solar sail.

Apr 8, 2024

Biot Savart law gives us magnetic field strength or magnetic flux density?

Apr 6, 2024

Why charge density of moving dipole is dependent on time?

Apr 5, 2024

I have a question about energy & ignoring friction losses

Apr 3, 2024

What Causes the Einstein - de Haas Effect in Iron Rods?

Mar 31, 2024

Effects of the centre of gravity on aircraft's stability

Mar 30, 2024

More from Other Physics Topics

Related Stories

'Uncle Hawking' draws nearly half-billion clicks from mourning Chinese (Update)

Mar 14, 2018

Stephen Hawking, a life in 10 dates

Stephen hawking: a brief history of genius, 'the mind of god': top quotes from stephen hawking.

Stephen Hawking reveals trials, triumphs in new film of his life (Update)

Sep 19, 2013

Stephen Hawking, best-known physicist of his time, has died

Recommended for you.

ATLAS provides first measurement of the W-boson width at the LHC

Apr 10, 2024

Peter Higgs, physicist who proposed the existence of the 'God particle,' dies at 94

Apr 9, 2024

FASER measures high-energy neutrino interaction strength

Physicists discover elbow-like feature in mean logarithmic mass spectrum of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays

Nonvolatile quantum memory: Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits

Let us know if there is a problem with our content.

Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form . For general feedback, use the public comments section below (please adhere to guidelines ).

Please select the most appropriate category to facilitate processing of your request

Thank you for taking time to provide your feedback to the editors.

Your feedback is important to us. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages.

E-mail the story

Your email address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the email. Neither your address nor the recipient's address will be used for any other purpose. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Phys.org in any form.

Newsletter sign up

Get weekly and/or daily updates delivered to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time and we'll never share your details to third parties.

More information Privacy policy

Donate and enjoy an ad-free experience

We keep our content available to everyone. Consider supporting Science X's mission by getting a premium account.

E-mail newsletter

Stephen Hawking's life was made possible by access to great health care and social support

The death of Stephen Hawking quickly prompted tributes from scientists, celebrities, and politicians , touting the brilliant physicist’s revelations about the nature of the heavens. For the disability rights community, however, his legacy is a little more material. Hawking’s life reveals what can happen when a disabled person receives all the supports they need to live their life to the fullest.

A life like Hawking’s might easily fall into one of two ableist (discrimination or stigma based on prejudice and misconceptions about disability) tropes: The “ supercrip ” and the body/mind split. In the former, his accomplishments might suggest he “overcame” his disability. In the latter, his disability vanishes from the story as we emphasize the beauty of his mind.

Not only would either be untrue to Hawking’s own words about disability, it sends the wrong message to others. We need to see the scientist as a whole person with a complicated life story. He was a genius, he worked incredibly hard, he had access to great health care and social support, he had plenty of privilege and received help from countless people behind the scenes.

Understanding Hawking starts by shifting our understanding of disability itself, and considering the ways that disability emerges from a complex matrix of social, political, cultural, economic, and biological systems. Societies — people — erect barriers, whether literal physical barriers or those emerging from ableist attitudes and stigma, and create limitations that make it even harder for people less privileged than Stephen Hawking to thrive the way that he did.

Take, for example, the ways that many disabled people are remembering Hawking today. Eb, a disability justice activist, argued that we should understand Hawking as , “An exceptionally privileged white English man who had access to the necessary supports to successfully navigate a world that puts little importance on making itself accessible.” Imani Barbarin, who identifies as a black disabled woman, wrote on her blog , “He never forgot to advocate for disabled people and often lamented the difficulties he faced in the academic community despite his well-known status. We celebrate the life of a man that made it to the stars and worked hard to take us along with him.”

Rick Godden, a professor of English at Louisiana State University, says that throughout his own life, people have tried to tell him that his mind was somehow compensation for his body, rather than understanding him as a whole person. He doesn’t want Hawking — or himself — to be used as inspiration because he "overcame" his body, but “for others who identify as disabled or non-normative in any fashion so that they know they are not alone.”

What’s more, Stephen Hawking himself wrote beautifully about disability and his own success. Writing for the World Health Organization in 2011 , he argued, “We have a moral duty to remove the barriers to participation, and to invest sufficient funding and expertise to unlock the vast potential of people with disabilities.” Notice that he’s not talking about cures for disabilities, but removal of barriers to full participation in public life for people who have them.

He also knew that, in both the U.K. and the U.S., right-wing governments are busy erecting more barriers rather than taking them down. In 2008, he defended the U.K.’s health system against American right-wing attacks , by saying, “I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. In 2017, he castigated the the Tory government for cutting public funding and accelerating privatization. He had planned to go to court to fight Tory austerity plans before he died. He argued that in today’s Britain , access to disability-related supports and services is being stripped away .

Hawking was a complex, brilliant, well-supported, disabled man who did more than increase our understanding of the universe. He fought to increase our understanding of disability, and the social forces that create barriers to people that have them. To honor his legacy, we can't just look to the stars: We must create more possibilities for people like him here on earth.

David Perry is a freelance journalist and historian. He covers politics, disability, higher education and history.

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• 14 March 2018

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018)

• Martin Rees 0

Martin Rees is Astronomer Royal of the United Kingdom. He was a student in Dennis Sciama’s research group at the University of Cambridge at the same time as Stephen Hawking.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

You have full access to this article via your institution.

Stephen Hawking in Cambridge, January 1993. Credit: David Montgomery/Getty

When Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with motor-neuron disease at the age of 21, it wasn’t clear that he would finish his PhD. Against all expectations, he lived on for 55 years, becoming one of the world’s most celebrated scientists.

Hawking, who died on 14 March 2018, was born in Oxford, UK, in 1942 to a medical-researcher father and a philosophy-graduate mother. After attending St Albans School near London, he earned a first-class degree in physics from the University of Oxford. He began his research career in 1962, enrolling as a graduate student in a group at the University of Cambridge led by one of the fathers of modern cosmology, Dennis Sciama.

The general theory of relativity was at that time undergoing a renaissance, initiated in part by Roger Penrose at Birkbeck College, London, who had introduced new mathematical techniques. These showed that generic gravitational collapse would lead to singularities — infinities that signal the need for new physics.

Stephen Hawking: A life in science

The implications for black holes and the Big Bang were developed by Hawking in a series of papers collated in the 1973 monograph The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time (Cambridge University Press), co-authored with George Ellis, a near-contemporary who had also been a student of Sciama. Especially important was the realization that the area of black holes’ horizons (‘one-way membranes’ that shroud the singularities, and from within which nothing can escape) could never decrease. The analogy with entropy — a measure of disorder that likewise can never decrease — was developed further by physicist Jacob Bekenstein.

These findings gained Hawking election to the Royal Society in London in 1974, at the age of 32. By then, he was so frail that both movement and speech were difficult, and most of us suspected that his days in front-line research were numbered. But in that same year, he came up with his most distinctive contribution to science: Hawking radiation.

By linking quantum theory and gravity, Hawking showed that a black hole would not be completely black, but would radiate with a well-defined temperature that depended inversely on its mass ( S. W. Hawking Nature 248, 30–31; 1974 ). Black-hole entropy was more than just an analogy. The implication was that the radiation would cause black holes to ‘evaporate’. This process would be unobservably slow, except in ‘mini-holes’ the size of atoms — and these are thought not to exist. Yet Hawking radiation — and the related issue of whether information that falls into a black hole is lost or is somehow recoverable from the radiation — was a profound issue, and one that still engenders controversy among theoretical physicists. Indeed, theorist Andrew Strominger at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in 2016 that one of Hawking’s papers on the subject ( S. W. Hawking Phys. Rev. D 14, 2460–2473; 1976 ) had caused “more sleepless nights among theoretical physicists than any paper in history”.

By the end of the 1970s, Hawking had been appointed to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge (former incumbents include Isaac Newton and Paul Dirac); he held the post until he retired in 2009. During these years, in which his focus shifted to the quantum aspects of the Big Bang, the issue of information loss in black holes continued to challenge him.

In 1985, Stephen underwent a tracheotomy, which removed his already limited powers of speech. He was able to control a cursor on a screen and type out sentences — albeit with increasingly painful slowness (first with his hand, and eventually only with a cheek muscle). A speech synthesizer processed his words and generated the androidal accent that became his trademark. In this way, he completed his best-selling book A Brief History of Time (Bantam, 1988), which propelled him to celebrity status.

Had Hawking achieved equal distinction in any other branch of science besides cosmology, it probably would not have had the same resonance with a worldwide public. As I put it in The Telegraph newspaper in 2007, “the concept of an imprisoned mind roaming the cosmos” grabbed people’s imagination.

In 1965, Stephen married Jane Wilde. After 25 years of marriage, and three children, the strain of Stephen’s illness and of sharing their home with a team of nurses became too much and they separated, divorcing in 1995. Jane wrote a book about their life together, Travelling to Infinity (Alma, 2008), and both she and Stephen were happy with the telling of their story in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything (although it elides and conflates Stephen’s science). After a second, briefer marriage, Stephen was supported by an entourage of assistants, as well as his family.

Stephen remained remarkably positive throughout his life, despite the immense frustration that his condition clearly caused. He enjoyed theatre and opera trips, and he seemed energized rather than exhausted by his travels to all parts of the world, as well as by his regular trips to the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He retained robust common sense and a sense of humour, expressed forceful opinions, supported political causes and was happy to engage with the media, despite its insistent attention. His comments gained outsized attention even on subjects in which he was not a specialist, such as philosophy and the dangers of artificial intelligence.

Stephen’s expectations when he was diagnosed dropped to zero; he said that everything that had happened since had been a bonus. And what a bonus — for physics, for the millions enlightened by his books and for the even larger number inspired by his achievement against all the odds.

Nature 555 , 444 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-02839-9

Related Articles

‘Best view ever’: observatory will map Big Bang’s afterglow in new detail

News 22 MAR 24

Do black holes explode? The 50-year-old puzzle that challenges quantum physics

Muse 14 MAR 24

How dwarf galaxies lit up the Universe after the Big Bang

News 28 FEB 24

Light makes atoms behave like electromagnetic coils

News & Views 10 APR 24

Phononic switching of magnetization by the ultrafast Barnett effect

Article 10 APR 24

Direct observation of a magnetic-field-induced Wigner crystal

Husbandry Technician I

Memphis, Tennessee

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (St. Jude)

Lead Researcher – Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation & Cellular Therapy

Researcher in the center for in vivo imaging and therapy, scientist or lead researcher (protein engineering, hematology, shengdar q. tsai lab), lead or senior researcher - flow cytometry.

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

HIE Help Center

Call For Free Case Review: 888-329-0122

How Stephen Hawking Normalized Disability and Spoke for Those Who Could Not

Stephen Hawking (01/08/1942 – 03/14/2018) was a brilliant theoretical physicist who revolutionized our understanding of time and space. He also shifted societal perceptions of people with disabilities and used his fame to advocate for disability rights.

Hawking and Our Understanding of Disability

At the age of 21, Hawking was diagnosed with a rare neurological disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and given only a few years to live. Although he did gradually become paralyzed and lose his ability to speak, Hawking exceeded his life expectancy by decades and continued to make seminal contributions to the scientific world. He also became one of the first and probably most famous users of high-tech augmented and alternative communication (AAC) ; Hawking talked through an infrared sensor that could detect movement in his cheek and translate that into synthesized speech. His computerized voice quickly became iconic for its robotic quality. As Karin Willison noted in an article for The Mighty , “Before Stephen Hawking came along, people with speech disabilities were often dismissed as mentally unaware and unable to contribute to society…he made talking through a computer not just acceptable but cool.”

Hawking didn’t just improve broad societal perceptions, however – he also influenced the ways in which many people with disabilities saw themselves. In an opinion piece for The Guardian , Frances Ryan describes what Hawking meant to her:

“ Growing up disabled in Britain, I didn’t have many role models. There are hardly any statues of disabled leaders, no great lives with chronic disability documented in the history books. As a child, it’s easy to believe that disabled people have never really existed, and that when they did, it was as cripples to be pitied or burdens on society. In Hawking, we had a figure – brilliant, witty, kind – who confounded the negative stereotypes and the low expectations so often forced on those of us with a disability.”

Despite her praise of Hawking for raising expectations of people with disabilities, Ryan notes that excessively high expectations can also be harmful. She mentions that Hawking’s image was often featured on “inspirational” memes, along with statements like “The only disability is a bad attitude.”

Ryan and others have also emphasized that Hawking’s success was due not only to intelligence and determination (though he undoubtedly possessed both of those characteristics), but also to certain circumstances and opportunities. In an article for New Statesman , Alex Taylor points out that Hawking completed much of his education prior to manifesting symptoms of ALS. Taylor writes that had Hawking been born with a disability, “ it is likely that even the most basic access to advanced education would have been deemed out of the question, blocking the groundwork from which the mind-boggling theories emerged.”

Even after he developed ALS, Hawking possessed resources that many other people with disabilities lack access to. Willison notes that he had “ a loving and financially stable family, a top-notch education and a wife, children and professional colleagues who valued and supported him.” She goes on to ask, “How many Stephen Hawkings have been overlooked because they can’t afford an AAC device or access transportation to college? How many potential writers, business owners and teachers are out there struggling to prove their ALS, blindness or cerebral palsy doesn’t make them incapable of achieving great things?”

“I Speak for the People You Can’t Hear”

Hawking himself frequently acknowledged that much of his success was thanks to a financially-privileged background. In particular, he emphasized how different his life would have been without access to the technology that stopped him from becoming locked in his body. “My communication system broke down for three days, and I was shocked by how powerless I felt,” he said in a video message for UNESCO’s international conference in 2014. “I want to speak up for people who live their whole lives in that state…We need to make sure this technology becomes available to those who need it so that no one lives in silence. Please listen to me. I speak for the people you can’t hear.”

Hawking also advocated for access to healthcare by highlighting the ways in which he was relatively fortunate. In an article for The Guardian , discussing the U.K. National Health Service (NHS), Hawking noted that, “I have received a large amount of high-quality NHS treatment and would not be here today if it were not for the service.” He went on to criticize underfunding, moves to privatize services, and other issues that limit access to medical care.

“People value the NHS, and are proud that we treat everyone equally when they are sick,” Hawking wrote. “The NHS brings out the best in us. We cannot lose it.”

“We have a moral duty to remove the barriers to participation, and to invest sufficient funding and expertise to unlock the vast potential of people with disabilities,” wrote Hawking, in a foreword to the World Report on Disability .

In the wake of his death, some have suggested that the best way to honor Hawking is by working to remove these barriers. Of course, most people with and without disabilities do not have Hawking-level genius, but they shouldn’t need to in order to be treated as valued members of society. Willison sums this up well:

“We all have something to offer, a gift to share with the world. We can contribute – if we’re given the chance. If you admired Stephen Hawking, honor his life by doing your part to bring support systems and opportunities to more people with disabilities. Encourage a child with a disability in your school or neighborhood. Hire someone with a disability at your company. Cast an actor with a disability in your play or movie. Look for the talented people around you whose potential others may not see.”

Other Recent Posts:

Airline Crackdowns on Emotional Support Animals Incite Controversy

What Improv Comedy Can Teach Us About Autism

NPR Uncovers “Hidden Epidemic” of Sexual Assaults on People with Intellectual Disabilities

Five Tips for Accommodating Children with Disabilities During the Holidays

Finding Accessible Vacation Destinations and Activities

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Erasing Stephen Hawking’s disability erases an important part of who he was

• Show more sharing options
• Copy Link URL Copied!

In the days since Stephen Hawking’s death, obituaries have described him as being “confined” or “chained” to a wheelchair, as someone who “overcame” his disability and succeeded in spite of it.

None of those things are true. Stephen Hawking had a disability, and Stephen Hawking used a wheelchair. His work was possible because of those things, not in spite of them.

In fact, Hawking — a tireless advocate for disability rights when he wasn’t busy unlocking the secrets of the universe — viewed those things as a positive.

“My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics,” he wrote in Science Digest in 1984. “Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in.”

From the time he was 20 until his death Wednesday at the age of 76, Hawking suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis . More commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, it is a progressive neurological disorder that prevents the brain from controlling the voluntary muscles throughout the body.

People with disabilities and advocates for disability rights have been particularly chagrined by one image making the rounds on social media: an upright man silhouetted against a backdrop of stars, with an empty wheelchair in the foreground. It has been frequently accompanied by references to Hawking “finally being able to walk among the stars” or being “free” of his wheelchair.

#RIPStephenHawking pic.twitter.com/hydGXLtyQP — Mitchell Toy (@MitchellToy) March 14, 2018

The image makes it seem “like every disabled person dreams of shedding their disability,” said Virginia Knowlton Marcus , the director of legal advocacy for Disability Rights California .

“I think that able-bodied people often see the technology disabled people use as a burden,” she said. “His wheelchair was his tool. He wheeled all over Cambridge. It wasn’t a burden.”

Andrew Gurza , a disability rights awareness consultant and freelance writer in Toronto, said he was disturbed to see Hawking’s disability — a major part of his life and who he was — functionally erased in the drawing.

In a piece for Men’s Health , Gurza, who hosts a podcast about sex and disability called “Disability After Dark,” explained why he was bothered by the image.

“As a fellow wheelchair user, these kinds of depictions, while perhaps well-intentioned, sting,” he wrote. “I wouldn’t want someone to erase my identity as a disabled person in my death, as it is a huge intrinsic part of who I am and how I see the world around me. It is unfair that in order for us to celebrate his life, we feel it necessary to remove a part of who Stephen Hawking was: a disabled man.”

In an interview with The Times, Gurza said using a wheelchair gives you a unique perspective on the world, and that it’s possible Hawking wouldn’t have come up with the theories he did if he hadn’t had a disability.

“His disability probably lent itself to him becoming such a great mind, probably more than most people,” Gurza said. “Maybe [Hawking] wouldn’t have written this book, maybe he wouldn’t have thought about all these things if he weren’t disabled.”

Showing Hawking leaving his wheelchair behind implies that being in a wheelchair is something to escape. But Hawking’s wheelchair didn’t confine him. With a sophisticated onboard computer, it enabled him to work, to travel, to write and to lecture.

Gretchen Schreiber is a professional reader for a production company in Los Angeles, and she has a disability (though not one that limits her mobility). She wrote on Facebook about the troubling implications of sentiments like Hawking being “free of his chair,” describing them as “passive ableism.”

“Wheelchairs are modes of transport and allow people to be part of the community and part of the world, and essentially be free,” Schreiber told The Times. “So to turn it on its head as if it were some sort of prison, confinement — when it’s actually the opposite — is really sad and a misunderstanding of what the disabled community can do and add to the world.”

Disability is about the failure of the environment to be adapted to people with disabilities.

— USC professor Alison Dundes Renteln

In the foreword to a 2011 World Health Organization report on the global state of disability rights, Hawking wrote about a shared moral duty to remove barriers to participation for disabled people. He addressed the United Nations in support of a treaty called the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. (It was adopted by the U.N. in 2006, but fell six votes short of being ratified by the U.S. Senate in 2012.)

“He knew that he was a symbol, not only for the pursuit of knowledge about science but for people with disabilities,” said Alison Dundes Renteln , a political science professor at USC who helped with the drafting and implementation of the treaty. She said Hawking wanted everyone to know that people with disabilities could live full lives, just like he had, if they had the right tools and support.

“Disability is about the failure of the environment to be adapted to people with disabilities,” Renteln said: If a person who uses a wheelchair can’t access a scientific laboratory or a library because there aren’t ramps or the aisles aren’t wide enough, that’s the fault of the lab or library, not the wheelchair user.

Hawking spent his last months speaking out against potential cuts to Britain’s National Health Service and working on a lawsuit against Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

“Everybody assumes that a disability is a negative or somehow undesirable,” said Knowlton Marcus of Disability Rights California. “Disability is part of the normal, natural human diversity, and if we all could just accept that simple fact, it would be a giant step toward paving the way to more inclusion of people with disabilities. We live in an ableist society that really marginalizes so much human potential.”

A few years ago, Intel gave Stephen Hawking a fully upgraded communication system. He turned down one change: the option to have a less robotic-sounding voice.

Hawking said the synthesized voice he’d used since the 1980s was his voice, and he saw no reason to change it.

[email protected]

Follow me on Twitter @jessica_roy and “like” Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook .

MORE IN SCIENCE

By vibrating the muscles, engineers produce a better prosthetic hand

Evolve or die: Why our human ancestors learned to be social more than 320,000 years ago

Move over, Neanderthals: Our ancestors mated with Denisovans not once but twice, scientists say

More to Read

Madonna accused of ableism after ‘politically incorrect’ flub about fan in wheelchair

March 11, 2024

Civil rights leader promotes disability awareness after AMC Theatres incident

Dec. 29, 2023

He hits four L.A. raves a night in a wheelchair: ‘We need more disabled people going out’

Dec. 28, 2023

Jessica Roy is an assistant editor on the West Coast Experiences team at the Los Angeles Times. She writes and edits stories about things to do, see and try in Southern California. Previously, Roy was an assistant editor on the Utility Journalism team from August 2020 through August 2023, and an editor on the audience engagement team from 2015 to 2020.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Climate & Environment

Surrogate otter mom at Long Beach aquarium is rehabilitating pup ‘better than any human ever can’

April 11, 2024

Union accuses Kaiser of violations months after state fine on mental health care

April 9, 2024

This SoCal hazardous waste facility could get a new permit despite past violations

What to know about today’s solar eclipse

April 8, 2024

Stephen Hawking May Have Been the Longest-Living ALS Survivor. Here’s What We Know

T he world lost one of its most brilliant scientific minds Wednesday, when legendary physicist Stephen Hawking died at age 76 .

Hawking’s cause of death was likely amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a neurodegenerative disease that wears away at nerve and muscle function over time. He was first diagnosed with ALS more than five decades ago, at age 21, and was initially given just a few years to live — making the very nature of his long, illustrious career as much of a scientific marvel as the theories and discoveries it yielded .

Here’s what to know about ALS, and what may have allowed Hawking to beat the odds for so long.

What is ALS?

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that erodes motor neurons — cells in the brain and spinal cord that control muscular function — until it becomes difficult or impossible for a person to walk, talk, speak, swallow and breathe, according to the ALS Association . ALS symptoms often begin with slurred speech or muscle weakness and twitching, according to the Mayo Clinic , and get worse over time. The rate at which a person’s condition degrades can vary quite a bit, though the average survival time is three years after diagnosis, the ALS Association says.

While there’s no cure for ALS, the condition can be managed with medication, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. Some patients also use ventilators to assist with breathing.

Who gets ALS?

Doctors aren’t totally sure what causes ALS in most cases, though it does appear to have a genetic component in some people, according to the Mayo Clinic. It’s usually diagnosed in people between ages 40 and 60, and men seem to be more likely than women to develop the condition, at least before the age of 65, the Mayo Clinic says.

How rare is Hawking’s longevity?

Quite rare. Just 5% of ALS patients live longer than 20 years, according to the ALS Association, and it’s virtually unheard of to survive for 50 years or more — though North America’s longest-living ALS patient, a Canadian named Steven Wells , has had the condition for almost 40 years.

“This is fairly untypical,” says Lucie Bruijn, the ALS Association’s chief scientist, adding that she is not aware of anyone who has survived ALS longer than Hawking did. Hawking was also able to evade the dementia that some people with ALS experience toward the later phases of the disease, she says.

How did Hawking live so long with ALS?

Researchers aren’t sure, Bruijn says. “ALS is a complex disorder, and every journey is so incredibly variable,” she says. “We are working with teams globally on these very big data efforts, trying to understand each person’s clinical journey, what their genetics look like and what they were exposed to.” From that, she says, they’re “trying to figure out the puzzle.”

With only a few cases of extreme longevity on record, Bruijn says the sample size is too small to draw concrete conclusions about the factors that allow people like Hawking and Wells to live so long, though it’s probably some combination of genes, environment and clinical care. The kind of motor neurons affected by a person’s disease may also matter, Bruijn says, noting that motor neurons that control eye movement often resist ALS far longer than those in the brain and spinal cord. Understanding how those cells stave off death may help scientists understand long-term survival, she says.

“What is different about those motor neurons compared to those in the spinal cord and brain?” Bruijn asks. “We don’t have the answers yet, but I think those are the kinds of things that can give us clues.”

More Must-Reads From TIME

• Exclusive: Google Workers Revolt Over $1.2 Billion Contract With Israel
• Jane Fonda Champions Climate Action for Every Generation
• Stop Looking for Your Forever Home
• The Sympathizer Counters 50 Years of Hollywood Vietnam War Narratives
• The Bliss of Seeing the Eclipse From Cleveland
• Hormonal Birth Control Doesn’t Deserve Its Bad Reputation
• The Best TV Shows to Watch on Peacock
• Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time

Write to Jamie Ducharme at [email protected]

You May Also Like

Biography of Stephen Hawking, Physicist and Cosmologist

Karwai Tang/Getty Images

• Important Physicists
• Physics Laws, Concepts, and Principles
• Quantum Physics
• Thermodynamics
• Cosmology & Astrophysics
• Weather & Climate

• M.S., Mathematics Education, Indiana University
• B.A., Physics, Wabash College

Stephen Hawking (January 8, 1942–March 14, 2018) was a world-renowned cosmologist and physicist, especially esteemed for overcoming an extreme physical disability to pursue his groundbreaking scientific work. He was a bestselling author whose books made complex ideas accessible to the general public. His theories provided deep insights into the connections between quantum physics and relativity, including how those concepts might be united in explaining fundamental questions related to the development of the universe and the formation of black holes.

Fast Facts: Stephen Hawking

• Known For : Cosmologist, physicist, best-selling science writer
• Also Known As : Steven William Hawking
• Born : January 8, 1942 in Oxfordshire, England
• Parents : Frank and Isobel Hawking
• Died: March 14, 2018 in Cambridge, England
• Education : St Albans School, B.A., University College, Oxford, Ph.D., Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1966
• Published Works :  A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, The Universe in a Nutshell, On the Shoulders of Giants, A Briefer History of Time, The Grand Design, My Brief History
• Awards and Honors : Fellow of the Royal Society, the Eddington Medal, the Royal Society's Hughes Medal, the Albert Einstein Medal, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Wolf Prize in Physics, the Prince of Asturias Awards in Concord, the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the Michelson Morley Award of Case Western Reserve University, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society
• Spouses : Jane Wilde, Elaine Mason
• Children : Robert, Lucy, Timothy
• Notable Quote : “Most of the threats we face come from the progress we’ve made in science and technology. We are not going to stop making progress, or reverse it, so we must recognize the dangers and control them. I’m an optimist, and I believe we can.”

Stephen Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxfordshire, England, where his mother had been sent for safety during the German bombings of London of World War II. His mother Isobel Hawking was an Oxford graduate and his father Frank Hawking was a medical researcher.

After Stephen's birth, the family reunited in London, where his father headed the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research. The family then moved to St. Albans so that Stephen's father could pursue medical research at the nearby Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill.

Education and Medical Diagnosis

Stephen Hawking attended school in St. Albans, where he was an unexceptional student. His brilliance was much more apparent in his years at Oxford University. He specialized in physics and graduated with first-class honors despite his relative lack of diligence. In 1962, he continued his education at Cambridge University, pursuing a Ph.D. in cosmology.

At age 21, a year after beginning his doctoral program, Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as motor neuron disease, ALS, and Lou Gehrig's disease). Given only three years to live, he has written that this prognosis helped motivate him in his physics work .

There is little doubt that his ability to remain actively engaged with the world through his scientific work helped him persevere in the face of the disease. The support of family and friends were equally key. This is vividly portrayed in the dramatic film "The Theory of Everything."

The ALS Progresses

As his illness progressed, Hawking became less mobile and began using a wheelchair. As part of his condition, Hawking eventually lost his ability to speak, so he utilized a device capable of translating his eye movements (since he could no longer utilize a keypad) to speak in a digitized voice.

In addition to his keen mind within physics, he gained respect throughout the world as a science communicator. His achievements are deeply impressive on their own, but some of the reason he is so universally respected was his ability to accomplish so much while suffering the severe debility caused by ALS.

Marriage and Children

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

Career as Academic and Author

Hawking stayed on at Cambridge after his graduation, first as a research fellow and then as a professional fellow. For most of his academic career, Hawking served as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a position once held by Sir Isaac Newton .

Following a long tradition, Hawking retired from this post at age 67, in the spring of 2009, though he continued his research at the university's cosmology institute. In 2008 he also accepted a position as a visiting researcher at Waterloo, Ontario's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

In 1982 Hawking began work on a popular book on cosmology. By 1984 he had produced the first draft of "A Brief History of Time," which he published in 1988 after some medical setbacks. This book remained on the Sunday Times bestsellers list for 237 weeks. Hawking's even more accessible "A Briefer History of Time" was published in 2005.

Fields of Study

Hawking's major research was in the areas of theoretical cosmology , focusing on the evolution of the universe as governed by the laws of general relativity . He is most well-known for his work in the study of black holes . Through his work, Hawking was able to:

• Prove that singularities are general features of spacetime.
• Provide mathematical proof that information which fell into a black hole was lost.
• Demonstrate that black holes evaporate through Hawking radiation .

On March 14, 2018, Stephen Hawking died in his home in Cambridge, England. He was 76. His ashes were placed in London’s Westminster Abbey between the final resting places of Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

Stephen Hawking made large contributions as a scientist, science communicator, and as a heroic example of how enormous obstacles can be overcome. The Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication is a prestigious award that "recognizes the merit of popular science on an international level."

Thanks to his distinctive appearance, voice, and popularity, Stephen Hawking is often represented in popular culture. He made appearances on the television shows "The Simpsons" and "Futurama," as well as having a cameo on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in 1993.

"The Theory of Everything," a biographical drama film about Hawking's life, was released in 2014.

• “ Stephen Hawking .”  Famous Scientists .
• Redd, Nola Taylor. “ Stephen Hawking Biography (1942-2018) .”  Space.com , Space, 14 Mar. 2018.
• “ Stephen William Hawking .”  Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) .
• Biography of Brian Cox
• Biography of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
• What Is Astronomy and Who Does It?
• Leonard Susskind Bio
• Life and Work of Fred Hoyle, British Astronomer
• Niels Bohr and the Manhattan Project
• Biography of John Bardeen, Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist
• Biography of Isaac Newton, Mathematician and Scientist
• Understanding Cosmology and Its Impact
• Biography of Charles Wheatstone, British Inventor and Entrepreneur
• Biography of Physicist Paul Dirac
• Biography of Max Born, Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist
• Biography of Jagadish Chandra Bose, Modern-Day Polymath
• Biography of Humphry Davy, Prominent English Chemist
• Biography of Ernest Rutherford
• Life and Legacy of Joseph Lister, Father of Modern Surgery

• Newsletters
• Account Activating this button will toggle the display of additional content Account Sign out

Stephen Hawking’s Disability Activism Was As Invaluable As His Science

“all of us know we can reach for the stars.”.

The death of Stephen Hawking has prompted an outpouring of well-deserved tributes that highlight his humor , heart , and astounding scientific achievements . His legacy as a disability rights activist is just as noteworthy. As he wrote in the preface to the World Health Organization’s first World Report on Disability in 2011, “We have a moral duty to remove the barriers to participation, and to invest sufficient funding and expertise to unlock the vast potential of people with disabilities.” He spoke openly and often about how he could never have achieved what he did if not for the resources afforded to him by the U.K.’s National Health Service, and spent his final days battling cuts to the system that “ saved him ” following his diagnosis with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at the age of 22.

For many people with disabilities, Hawking’s example was invaluable—a source of empowerment and reassurance as well as a means of pushing back against ableist prejudices. Elsie Tellier, a young academic with cystic fibrosis, credited Hawking with paving the way for her and others; in the words of her Harvard classmate Simon Sun, “his life showed that there is so much more than ability. For an 8 y.o. who just had all physical function stripped away, this was everything.”

Fellow activists expressed their gratitude at Hawking’s outspoken advocacy for disability rights and his fight to preserve the NHS:

Others drew attention to the systemic barriers that Hawking fought to dismantle, calling for the many academics paying tribute to reflect on their own practices:

Perhaps the best encapsulation of Hawking’s views and contributions as an activist comes from the physicist himself. In 2014, he addressed UNESCO’s International Conference , speaking on the role information and communication technology have to play in empowering people with disabilities:

Because I have had such phenomenal technological support, I feel a responsibility to speak for others who have not. I have not been lucky to contract ALS, but I have been lucky to have this help. I want to use my high profile to raise awareness of issues around disability and communication. Recently, my communication system broke down for three days, and I was shocked by how powerless I felt. I want to speak up for people who live their whole lives in that state. My hope is that the kinds of technologies I have trialed and helped develop will become easily and cheaply available to all who need them. We need to make sure this technology becomes available to those who need it so that no one lives in silence. Please listen to me. I speak for the people you can’t hear.

To have lost a voice so committed to doing so is a tragedy. His absence will be deeply felt.

How Stephen Hawking Changed Perceptions of People With Disabilities

Around the world, people are mourning the loss of Stephen Hawking, who died March 13 at the age of 76 . A renowned physicist, cosmologist and author, he became one of the most influential scientists of all time. He developed revolutionary theories about the Big Bang and radiation emitting from black holes, which was named “Hawking radiation” in his honor. He won numerous scientific awards and was equally popular with the general public, writing bestselling books and making cameo appearances on shows like “Star Trek” and “The Simpsons.” He accomplished all this after being diagnosed with ALS at age 22 and told he had just a few years to live.

Hawking gained fame outside scientific circles after his 1988 book “A Brief History of Time” became a New York Times bestseller. I was a kid when “A Brief History of Time” was released, and along with 10 million other people, my mom bought a copy. I remember seeing it on the coffee table, seeing a picture of a man whose disability was more severe than mine on the front cover. At that age I hadn’t met many adults with disabilities and wondered what my future with cerebral palsy would hold. “Who is he?” I wondered. “What is this book about?” I tried reading it, but my intellectual strengths have always leaned more towards the literary. I won’t pretend to understand the intricacies of black holes or any of the other contributions Stephen Hawking made to science. But here is what I do know.

Stephen Hawking transformed the fields of physics and cosmology. He also changed the way society perceives people with disabilities. Hawking’s work did not center around his disability; in fact early in his career, he rarely got involved in disability advocacy. “I try to lead as normal a life as possible and not think about my condition or regret the things it prevents me from doing, which are not that many,” he said when asked about the role ALS played in his life. Instead, he simply pursued his passions and showed that people with disabilities can excel in all kinds of fields. Hawking lived unapologetically; he drove his wheelchair fast, got married and divorced twice and traveled all over the world. He became a pop culture icon and wasn’t afraid to laugh at himself. Undoubtedly we need disability advocates who fight injustice and discrimination, but we also need people like Hawking who lead by example and become role models for people with and without disabilities.

Before Stephen Hawking came along, people with speech disabilities were often dismissed as mentally unaware and unable to contribute to society. As one of the earliest and certainly most famous users of AAC (augmented and alternative communication), he made talking through a computer not just acceptable but cool. It became a mark of genius rather than limitation. With his awesome robot voice, Hawking even sang, joining Monty Python in a rendition of “The Galaxy Song.” He demonstrated how much we have to gain when everyone has access to technology.

Some tributes to Hawking have commended him by saying he made amazing contributions to science “despite his disability.” But statements like that sell him short. While his physical challenges did get in the way at times, he should be respected and remembered as successful compared to almost everyone, not just “for someone with a disability.” Hawking once commented on this in a 2013 documentary about his life. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries,” he said. His disability did make him more newsworthy — but his scientific accomplishments were genuine, and they are the reason he will be remembered as one of the greatest scientists of all time, alongside luminaries such as Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton.

If anything, Stephen Hawking’s disability influenced his work in a positive way. “I relish the rare opportunity I’ve been given to live the life of the mind,” he once said . While those without disabilities often perceive people like Hawking — and myself — as being “trapped” in our bodies, they actually give us a kind of freedom to focus on our thoughts, to not be constrained by the traditional expectations and demands society places on physical appearance. The progression of Hawking’s ALS contributed to his ability to think in different ways. “By losing the finer dexterity in my hands, I was forced to travel through the universe in my mind,” he said. Hawking could have escaped into the furthest reaches of the universe and stayed there, but instead he brought that world to the rest of us through his books and lectures. He didn’t want science — or disability — to be distant from everyday people.

As a person with a disability, Stephen Hawking was inspirational for the right reasons. We need true heroes like him — people who succeed while living  with disability, not despite it or solely because of it. He inspired people with and without disabilities to pursue careers in science. His long, fruitful life is proof that people with disabilities can accomplish just about anything. He showed the world how fulfilling life with a disability can be.

Stephen Hawking leaves behind a tremendous scientific legacy. He also leaves an important legacy for the disability community and a challenge to society. He would never have achieved his level of greatness without his brilliant mind, sheer determination and an unfailing sense of humor. But he also had advantages many people don’t, including a loving and financially stable family, a top-notch education and a wife, children and professional colleagues who valued and supported him. How many Stephen Hawkings have been overlooked because they can’t afford an AAC device or access transportation to college? How many potential writers, business owners and teachers are out there struggling to prove their ALS, blindness or cerebral palsy doesn’t make them incapable of achieving great things?

Most people with disabilities aren’t extraordinary geniuses like Stephen Hawking, nor should that kind of expectation be pushed on us. But we all have something to offer, a gift to share with the world. We can contribute — if we’re given the chance. If you admired Stephen Hawking, honor his life by doing your part to bring support systems and opportunities to more people with disabilities. Encourage a child with a disability in your school or neighborhood. Hire someone with a disability at your company. Cast an actor with a disability in your play or movie. Look for the talented people around you whose potential others may not see.

Stephen Hawking once said, “Because every new day could be my last, I have developed a desire to make the most of each and every minute.” And he did. During every moment of the over 50 years he lived with a progressive disability everyone thought would take his life within just a few, he thought, taught, laughed, loved and changed the world. What more can any of us hope for than to be fortunate enough to do the same?

I'm a Senior Editor at The Mighty, working with stories about disability, chronic illness, parenting, and more. In my spare time, I'm a disability travel blogger -- I road trip around the USA with my service dog and share my experiences. (She/her)

I’m a Disabled Man, and Here's What You're Getting Wrong About Stephen Hawking's Death

In a world where people with disabilities are often pushed to the sidelines, Stephen Hawking was a powerful role model. He succeeded not in spite of his disability, but because of it.

Aside from Christopher Reeve , Stephen Hawking has been one of the most public disabled figures in my lifetime. Our experiences of disability were vastly different: as an adult, Hawking developed early on-set Lou Gehrig’s disease , or ALS, while I was born with cerebral palsy, a disability that, for the most part, is stable and unchanging. I wouldn’t say that he was a role model per se, but every time I saw a video or picture of him in his wheelchair, my disabled heart would burst with a sense of indescribable pride. Here was someone who looked like me — a wheelchair user — doing great things that would change the world.

So when I saw that he had passed, I lingered just a little while longer on his story. After all, one of my teammates in disability was gone, and even as I type this, it hurts a little bit to consider the implications of that. People with disabilities get so little recognition from the outside world; we're rarely depicted in popular culture, unless it's in a way that pities or infantilizes us. The significance of a disabled man being viewed as one of the brightest minds of our generation cannot be understated.

As a disabled person, however, I'm also troubled by the way the media has framed his life and his passing. Among the run-of-the-mill condolences I saw on social media, there were a few that bothered me, including a meme depicting the spirit of Mr. Hawking walking out of his wheelchair, as if he were now free of it.

As a fellow wheelchair user, these kinds of depictions, while perhaps well-intentioned, sting. I wouldn’t want someone to erase my identity as a disabled person in my death, as it is a huge intrinsic part of who I am and how I see the world around me. It is unfair that in order for us to celebrate his life, we feel it necessary to remove a part of who Stephen Hawking was: a disabled man.

.css-vjih4b{font-family:Knockout,Knockout-roboto,Knockout-local,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:3.125rem;letter-spacing:0.03rem;line-height:1;margin:0rem;}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-vjih4b{font-size:3.125rem;line-height:1;}}.css-vjih4b b,.css-vjih4b strong{font-family:inherit;font-weight:bold;}.css-vjih4b em,.css-vjih4b i{font-style:italic;font-family:inherit;}.css-vjih4b a{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-color:#FFF200;} "When I think of Hawking’s death, I don’t see his spirit rising out of his wheelchair to be free."

When I hear people saying things like, “He went on despite all odds,” I want to point out that Hawking went on because he had no choice not to. His disability was what it was; he wanted to live his life and pursue his academic passions, and he knew that his disabled identity was going to need to be a part of that.

It also bothers me when I see the media framing Hawking's disability as something he " suffered ." As a disabled person, I am sure there were days when Hawking did suffer the effects of his disability (all disabled people have been there at some point or another). But I am also sure there were moments where his disability was a source of great humor, levity, and connection for him, and it is important that we acknowledge that as well when we talk about him. I mean, c’mon, he had guest spots on The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory . The man could clearly laugh at himself.

When I think of Hawking’s passing, I don’t see his spirit rising up out of his wheelchair to be free, because I don’t see his disability as something he needed to be freed from. Instead, I take comfort in the knowledge that wherever he is now, whether it be among the cosmos or in a black hole of nothingness, his disability is with him.

Rest in power, Mr. Hawking, and thank you.

Andrew Gurza is a Disability Awareness Consultant whose written work has been featured in the Huffington Post, The Advocate, Everyday Feminism, Mashable, and Out.com. He is the host of DisabilityAfterDark: The Podcast Shining a Bright Light on Sex and Disability. You can follow his work on Twitter @andrewgurza .

.css-1fpt53b{height:1.25rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-1fpt53b{overflow:unset;line-height:1.25rem;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-1fpt53b{line-height:1.25rem;}}.css-1fpt53b:before{background-color:#D2232E;color:#fff;margin-right:0.625rem;width:1.25rem;height:1.25rem;content:'';display:block;} Health

My Dog Almost Killed Me

The Truth About TRT and Hair Loss

Does Pubic Hair Grow Back Faster Than Other Hair?

The Best Teeth-Whitening Kits For A Brighter Smile

Does Ozempic Cause Muscle Loss?

Dick Vitale Is Still Going Strong, Baby!

Arnold Just Revealed He Had Another Heart Surgery

Sleep Coaching vs. Sleep Therapy

How to Lose Water Weight, According to Experts

Rapper Vic Mensa on Being Emotionally Honest

A User's Guide to the Gut Microbiome

Stephen Hawking biography: Theories, books & quotes

A brief history of theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

• Scientific achievements
• Filmography
• Quotes and controversial statements

Additional resources

Stephen Hawking is 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 , at the age of 76.

Stephen Hawking was seen by many as the world's smartest person, though he never revealed his IQ score. When asked about his IQ score by a New York Times reporter he replied, "I have no idea, people who boast about their IQ are losers," according to the news site The Atlantic .  

Related: 4 bizarre Stephen Hawking theories that turned out to be right (and 6 we're not sure about)

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.   

The early life of Stephen Hawking

British cosmologist Stephen William Hawking was born in Oxford, 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. 

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) . Doctors told Hawkings that he would likely not survive more than two years with the disease. Completing his doctorate did not appear likely, but Hawking defied the odds. He also obtained his PhD in 1966 for his thesis entitled " Properties of expanding universes ". In that same year, Hawking also won the prestigious Adams Prize for his essay entitled "Singularities and the Geometry of Space-Time".

From then Hawking went on to forge 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 in 1990. Hawking remarried in 1995 to Elaine Mason but divorced in 2006.

Stephen Hawking's greatest scientific achievements

Throughout his career, Hawking proposed several theories regarding astronomical anomalies, posed curious questions about the cosmos and enlightened the world about the origin of everything. Here are just some of the many milestones Hawking made in the name of science. 

In 1970, Hawkings and fellow physicist and Oxford classmate, Roger Penrose, published a joint paper entitled " The singularities of gravitational collapse and cosmology ". In this paper, Hawking and Penrose proposed a new theory of spacetime singularities — a breakdown in the fabric of the universe found in one of Hawking's later discoveries, the black hole. This early work not only challenged concepts in physics but also supported the concept of the Big Bang as the birth of the universe, as outlined in Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity in the 1940s. 

Over the course of his career, Hawking studied the basic laws governing the universe. In 1974, Hawking published another paper called " Black hole explosions? ", in which he outlined a theorem that united Einstein's theory of general relativity, with quantum theory — which explains the behavior of matter and energy on an atomic level. In this new paper, Hawking hypothesized that matter not only fell into the gravitational pull of black holes but that photons radiated from them — which has now been confirmed in laboratory experiments by the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel — aptly named "Hawking radiation". 

In 1974, Hawking was inducted into the Royal Society, a worldwide fellowship of scientists. Five years later, 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).

During the 1980s, Hawking turned his attention to the Big Bang and the uncertainties about the beginning of the universe. "Events before the Big Bang are simply not defined, because there’s no way one could measure what happened at them. Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory and say that time began at the Big Bang," he said during his lecture called The Beginning of Time . In 1983, Hawking, along with scientists James Harlte, published a paper outlining their " no-boundary proposal " for the universe. In their paper, Hawking and Hartle describe the shape of the universe as reminiscent of a shuttlecock — with the Big Bang at the narrowest point and the expanding universe emerging from it.

Related: Can we time travel? A theoretical physicist provides some answers

Books by Stephen Hawking

In the last three decades of Hawking's life, he not only continued to publish academic literature, but he also published several popular science books to share his theories of the history of the universe with the layperson. His most popular book " A Brief History of Time " (10th-anniversary edition: Bantam, 1998) was first published in 1988 and became an international bestseller. It has sold almost 10 million copies and has been translated into 40 different languages.

Hawking went on to write other nonfiction books aimed at non-scientists. These include " A Briefer History of Time ," " The Universe in a Nutshell ," " The Grand Design " and " On the Shoulders of Giants ." 

Along with his many successful books about the inner workings of the universe, Hawking also began a series of science fiction books called " George and the Big Bang ", with his daughter Lucy Hawking in 2011. Aimed at middle school children, the series follows George's adventures as he travels through space. 

Stephen Hawking's filmography

Hawking has 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." He has also voiced himself in several episodes of the animated series "Futurama" and "The Simpson". In 1997, PBS also 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." 

Related: The Theory of Everything: Searching for the universal rules of physics

Stephen Hawking's quotes and controversial statements

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? "— A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes , 1988 
• "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."— Stephen Hawking's Universe , 1997.  
• "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 Guardian, 2011 .
• "We should seek the greatest value of our action." — The Guardian, 2011. 
• "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. "— A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes , 1988.   
• "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."  
• "It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value." — Life in the Universe , 1996.  
• "One cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem." — A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes , 1988.  
• "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." — The Guardian, 2005 . 
• "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." — Stem Cell Universe , 2014. 

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," he said during an interview with video site Big Think , 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,"  Hawking said during a lecture at the Oxford Union debating society , 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," he said during a speech at the Starmus Festival in Norway, 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 as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out. I was one of the first to write about the conditions under which this would be possible. I showed it would require matter with negative energy density, which may not be available. Other scientists took courage from my paper and wrote further papers on the subject," he told the new site Parade in 2010. "Science is not only a disciple of reason, but, also, one of romance and passion," he adds.

The theoretical physicist was also concerned that robots could not only have an impact on the economy but also mean doom for humanity.

"The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining," he wrote in a 2016 column in The Guardian .

"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race," he told the BBC in 2014. Hawking added, however, that AI developed to date has been helpful. It's more the self-replication potential that worries him. "It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."

"The genie is out of the bottle. I fear that AI may replace humans altogether," Hawking told WIRED in November 2017.

An avowed atheist, Hawking also occasionally waded into the topic of religion.

• "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." — The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. 
• "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail…There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark," he said during a 2011 interview with The Guardian .
• "Before we understand science, it is natural to believe that God created the universe. But now science offers a more convincing explanation. What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God, which there isn't. I'm an atheist," Hawking said in a 2014 interview with the news site El Mundo .  

For more information about Stephen Hawking, his theories and read through the many transcriptions of his influential lectures, check out his official website . You can also watch Hawking probe the origins of the cosmos in his extraordinary TED talk .  

Bibliography

#5: Stephen Hawking’s warning: Abandon earth-or face extinction . Big Think. (2010, July 27). https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/5-stephen-hawkings-warning-abandon-earth-or-face-extinction/

Beck, J. (2017, October 11). “people who boast about their IQ are losers.” The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/trump-tillerson-iq-brag-boast-psychology-study/542544/

The beginning of time . Stephen Hawking. (n.d.-c). https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/the-beginning-of-time

Guardian News and Media. (2005, September 27). Interview: Stephen Hawking . The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/sep/27/scienceandnature.highereducationprofile

Guardian News and Media. (2011a, May 15). Stephen Hawking: “there is no heaven; it’s a Fairy story.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven

Guardian News and Media. (2011b, May 15). Stephen Hawking: “there is no heaven; it’s a Fairy story.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven

Guardian News and Media. (2016, December 1). This is the most dangerous time for our planet | Stephen Hawking . The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/01/stephen-hawking-dangerous-time-planet-inequality

Hartle, J. B., & Hawking, S. W. (1983, December 15). Wave function of the universe . Physical Review D. https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.28.2960

Hawking radiation and the sonic black hole - technion - israel institute of technology . Technion. (2021, February 17). https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2021/02/hawking-radiation-and-the-sonic-black-hole/

Hawking, S. W. (1974, March 1). Black Hole Explosions? . Nature News. https://www.nature.com/articles/248030a0

Life in the universe . Stephen Hawking. (n.d.-a). https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/lectures/life-in-the-universe

Medeiros, J. (2017, November 28). Stephen Hawking: “I fear ai may replace humans altogether.” WIRED UK. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/stephen-hawking-interview-alien-life-climate-change-donald-trump

Oxford Union Speech . Stephen Hawking. (n.d.-b). https://www.hawking.org.uk/in-words/speeches/speech-5

Pablo Jáuregui, Enviado especial Guía de Isora (Tenerife), & Chocolatillo. (2018, March 14). Stephen Hawking: “no hay ningún dios. soy ateo.” ELMUNDO. https://www.elmundo.es/ciencia/2014/09/21/541dbc12ca474104078b4577.html

The singularities of gravitational collapse and cosmology . Royal Society Publishing. (1970, January 27). https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspa.1970.0021

Hawking, S. W. (1966). Properties of expanding universes. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11283

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Get the Space.com Newsletter

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Nola Taylor Tillman is a contributing writer for Space.com. She loves all things space and astronomy-related, and enjoys the opportunity to learn more. She has a Bachelor’s degree in English and Astrophysics from Agnes Scott college and served as an intern at Sky & Telescope magazine. In her free time, she homeschools her four children. Follow her on Twitter at @NolaTRedd

• Scott Dutfield Contributor

NASA gets $25.4 billion in White House's 2025 budget request

'Interstellar meteor' vibrations actually caused by a truck, study suggests

Japanese astronauts will join NASA moon landings in return for lunar rover

Most Popular

By Jamie Carter February 16, 2024

By Fran Ruiz February 15, 2024

By Fran Ruiz February 12, 2024

By Tantse Walter February 06, 2024

By Fran Ruiz January 29, 2024

By Fran Ruiz January 26, 2024

By Conor Feehly January 05, 2024

By Keith Cooper December 22, 2023

By Fran Ruiz December 20, 2023

By Fran Ruiz December 19, 2023

By Fran Ruiz December 18, 2023

• 2 Why Peter Higgs leaves a massive legacy in the field of physics
• 3 See Jupiter close to a crescent moon (Mars near Saturn, too) in the 'View a Planet Day' night sky
• 4 What happened when the moon 'turned itself inside out' billions of years ago?
• 5 Could these big expandable habitats help humanity settle the moon and Mars?

Biography Online

Stephen Hawking Biography

Early life Stephen Hawking

Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England. His family had moved to Oxford to escape the threat of V2 rockets over London. As a child, he showed prodigious talent and unorthodox study methods. On leaving school, he got a place at University College, Oxford University where he studied Physics. His physics tutor at Oxford, Robert Berman, later said that Stephen Hawking was an extraordinary student. He used few books and made no notes, but could work out theorems and solutions in a way other students couldn’t.

“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”

– Stephen Hawking’s Universe (1985) by John Boslough, Ch. 7

It was in Cambridge that Stephen Hawking first started to develop symptoms of neuro-muscular problems – a type of motor neuron disease. This quickly started to hamper his physical movements. His speech became slurred, and he became unable to even to feed himself. At one stage, the doctors gave him a lifespan of three years. However, the progress of the disease slowed down, and he has managed to overcome his severe disability to continue his research and active public engagements. At Cambridge, a fellow scientist developed a synthetic speech device which enabled him to speak by using a touchpad. This early synthetic speech sound has become the ‘voice’ of Stephen Hawking, and as a result, he has kept the original sound of this early model – despite technological advancements.

Nevertheless, despite the latest technology, it can still be a time-consuming process for him to communicate. Stephen Hawking has taken a pragmatic view to his disability:

“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. ” The Guardian (27 September 2005)

Stephen Hawking’s principal fields of research have been involved in theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity.

Amongst many other achievements, he developed a mathematical model for Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. He has also undertaken a lot of work on the nature of the Universe, The Big Bang and Black Holes.

In 1974, he outlined his theory that black holes leak energy and fade away to nothing. This became known as “Hawking radiation” in 1974. With mathematicians Roger Penrose he demonstrated that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity implies space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes.

Despite being one of the best physicists of his generation, he has also been able to translate difficult physics models into a general understanding for the general public. His books – A Brief History of Time and The Universe in A Nutshell have both became runaway bestsellers – with a Brief History of Time staying in the Bestsellers lists for over 230 weeks and selling over 10 million copies. In his books, Hawking tries to explain scientific concepts in everyday language and give an overview to the workings behind the cosmos.

“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.”

–  A Brief History Of Time (1998) ch. 8

Stephen Hawking has become one of the most famous scientists of his generation. He makes frequent public engagements and his portrayed himself in popular media culture from programmes, such as The Simpsons to Star Trek.

Hawking had the capacity to relate the most complex physics to relateable incidents in everyday life.

“The message of this lecture is that black holes ain’t as black as they are painted. They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly to another universe. So if you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up – there’s a way out.”

Stephen Hawking. 7 January 2016 –  Reith lecture at the Royal Institute in London.

In the late 1990s, he was reportedly offered a knighthood, but 10 years later revealed he had turned it down over issues with the government’s funding for science

He married Jane Wilde, a language student in 1965. He said this was a real turning point for him at a time when he was fatalistic because of his illness. They later divorced but had three children.

Stephen Hawking passed away on 14 March 2018 at his home in Cambridge.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Stephen Hawking ”, Oxford, UK – www.biographyonline.net . Last updated 15 January 2018.

A Brief History Of Time

A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking at Amazon

Quotes of Stephen Hawking

“If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God.”

– Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (1993)

“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?”

– A Brief History of Time (1988)

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”

– Stephen Hawking

“For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind’s greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.”

– Stephen Hawking (BT advert 1993)

Related pages

• Stephen Hawking.org.uk

Stephen hawkings amazing scientist

• February 20, 2019 5:18 AM
• By Rambharat Singh

Very interesting and helpful to know the supernova of physics

• April 16, 2018 2:34 PM
• By Jiji nixon