Stephen William Hawking, Physicist, Scientist

Stephen William Hawking, is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. Among his significant scientific works have been a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularities theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set forth a cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is a vocal supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Hawking is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the US. In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009 and has achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; his book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 (300 years after the death of Galileo) in Oxford, England. His parents' house was in north London, but during the second world war, Oxford was considered a safer place to have babies. When he was eight, his family moved to St. Albans, a town about 20 miles north of London. At the age of eleven, Stephen went to St. Albans School and then on to University College, Oxford; his father's old college. Stephen wanted to study Mathematics, although his father would have preferred medicine. Mathematics was not available at University College, so he pursued Physics instead. After three years and not very much work, he was awarded a first class honors degree in Natural Science.

 

Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology, there being no one working in that area in Oxford at the time. His supervisor was Denis Sciama, although he had hoped to get Fred Hoyle who was working in Cambridge. After gaining his Ph.D. he became first a Research Fellow and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973, Stephen came to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics in 1979, and held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1979 until 2009. The chair was founded in 1663 with money left in the will of the Reverend Henry Lucas who had been the Member of Parliament for the University. It was first held by Isaac Barrow and then in 1669 by Isaac Newton. Stephen is still an active part of Cambridge University and retains an office at the Department for Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics. His title is now the Dennis Stanton Avery and Sally Tsui Wong-Avery Director of Research at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.

Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe. With Roger Penrose he showed that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in  the  Big  Bang and an end in  black  holes. These  results  indicated  that  it  was  necessary  to unify General Relativity with Quantum    Theory, the  other  great  Scientific  development  of   the  first  half  of  the  20th   Century. One consequence  of such a unification  that he  discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but rather  should  emit radiation  and  eventually  evaporate  and  disappear. Another  conjecture is that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary  time. This  would imply that the way the universe began was completely determined by the laws of science.

His many publications include The Large Scale Structure of Space time  with G F R Ellis, General  Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey, with W Israel, and 300 Years of Gravity, with W Israel. Among  the  popular books Stephen Hawking has published are his best seller A  Brief  History of Time, Black  Holes and  Baby Universes and Other Essays, The Universe in a Nutshell, The Grand Design and My Brief History.

Professor  Hawking  has  twelve  honorary  degrees. He was awarded the CBE in 1982, and  was  made a Companion of Honour in 1989. He is the  recipient of many awards, medals and prizes, is a  Fellow of  The Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Stephen was diagnosed with ALS, a form of Motor Neurone Disease, shortly after his 21st birthday. In spite of  being  wheelchair  bound  and  dependent  on a computerized voice system for communication. Since the 1990s, Hawking  has  accepted  the  mantle of  role model for disabled people, lecturing and participating in fundraising activities. At the turn of the century, he  and  eleven  other  luminaries  signed  the  Charter for the Third Millennium on Disability which called on governments to prevent disability and protect disability  rights. In  1999, Hawking  was  awarded  the   Julius  Edgar   Lilienfeld  Prize  of  the  American  Physical  Society. Motivated by the desire to increase public interest in  spaceflight  and to  show  the  potential  of  people with disabilities,

Stephen Hawking  continues  to  combine  family life  (he has three children and three grandchildren), and his research into theoretical physics  together  with an extensive programme of travel and public lectures. He still hopes to make it into space one day.

for more details :-

•  Hawking Official Website
• Stephen Hawking