On the occasion of Stephen Hawking’s 80th birthday, a tribute to one of the great legends. “If you have the will, you will find a way,” as this remarkable personality demonstrated by refusing to let his disabilities limit his capabilities.
Stephen William Hawking, an English theoretical physicist, was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, and died on March 14, 2018, in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire.
Hawking received his B.A. in physics from University College, Oxford, and Trinity Hall, Cambridge (Ph.D., 1966). He was named a research fellow at Cambridge’s Gonville and Caius College. Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an incurable degenerative neuromuscular illness, in the early 1960s. Despite the disease’s increasingly crippling consequences, he continued to work.
Hawking spent most of his adult life in a wheelchair due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which affects movement. At the age of 21, he was diagnosed with a neurological condition and given only a few years to live.
Stephen Hawking, a world-renowned physicist who did not believe in God and described heaven as “a fairy tale.”
Hawking, who died at the age of 76, declared in his posthumous book “Brief Answers to the Big Questions” that “there is no God.” “No one guides the universe,” he also wrote. Hawking wasn’t the first person to dismiss the idea of a higher power. Years before his death, he had questioned God’s existence.
Hawking specialised on general relativity and black hole physics. In 1971, he proposed that multiple particles comprising up to one billion tonnes of mass but occupying only the space of a proton form after the great bang. Hawking postulated in 1974 that black holes produce subatomic particles in accordance with quantum theory predictions until their energy is exhausted and they burst. Hawking’s study fueled efforts to theorise the properties of black holes, objects about which it was previously considered that nothing could be known.
Hawking received numerous awards for his contributions to physics. In 1974, he was recognised as one of the Royal Society’s youngest fellows. In 1977, he was named professor of gravitational physics at Cambridge, and in 1979, he was named to the Lucasian professorship of mathematics at Cambridge, a position previously held by Isaac Newton. Hawking was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1989 and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1982. In 2006, he was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society, and in 2009, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the United States. In 2008, he accepted a visiting research chair at Waterloo, Ontario, Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.
Stephen Hawking was widely recognised as one of the world’s greatest theoretical physicists. From the Big Bang to black holes, Hawking’s work on the origins and structure of the universe revolutionised the discipline, and his best-selling books appealed to readers who may not have Hawking’s scientific background.
He never let his limitations get in the way of his success. He was successful in achieving his goals. Instead, he turned his disabilities into assets and ascended to the pinnacle of his profession. For all of eternity, he will be an inspiration to everyone on the planet.
His inspiraing words
” Remember to look at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.”
“However difficult life may seem, there’s always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up”.
“I think global warming is a greater threat than terrorism. Climate change could kill millions.”
