World famous champion of science, and champion of life, Stephen Hawking passed away in his home in Cambridge. His children said: ‘We will miss him forever.’
Stephen Hawking is well known for his contributions and insights that helped shape modern cosmology. It is not an understatement to say, that he may be the most popular and famous scientist of our time.
Hawking suffered from ALS, a motor disease that left his body paralyzed since the age of 21, and the kind-hearted genius not only beat the odds to survive, but he made incredible and significant scientific contributions to the world that will continue as his legacy for generations to come. In his youth and after his ALS diagnosis, doctors told him he would only live for another 2 years. The world is very grateful to have had him be with us for another 55 years since that diagnosis.
In a statement, Hawking’s children said: “We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today. He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. 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.”
Many fellow scientists deeply appreciated and loved Hawking’s brilliant mind combined with his enjoyable sense of humor, and when fully realizing all he had accomplished without even being able to speak on his own, one comes to truly marvel at the unbounded possibilities of the human mind.
Stephen Hawking was one of the few scientists of the 21st century to have a major movie made about him, as his courageous life inspired the 2014 movie The Theory of Everything, starring Eddie Redmayne as the brilliant Hawking himself.
Renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson also paid tribute to the cosmologist saying:
“His passing has left an intellectual vacuum in his wake. But it’s not empty. Think of it as a kind of vacuum energy permeating the fabric of spacetime that defies measure. Stephen Hawking, RIP 1942-2018.”
Hawking was hospitalized earlier in his life, and though physically incapacitated, found some deep inspiration related to life, as he said, “Although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before. I began to make progress with my research,”
“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”
Hawking’s first major breakthrough came in 1970, when he and Roger Penrose applied the mathematics of black holes to the universe and showed that a singularity, a region of infinite curvature in spacetime, lay in our distant past: the point from which came the big bang.
But it was A Brief History of Time that sent Hawking to stardom. Published in 1988, the title made the Guinness Book of Records after it stayed on the Sunday Times bestsellers list for an unprecedented 237 weeks. It sold over 10 million copies and was translated into 40 different languages.
Oscar winner Redmayne spent a lot of time with the genius before he passed, and has also expressed his love for Stephen:
“We have lost a truly beautiful mind, an astonishing scientist and the funniest man I have ever had the pleasure to meet. My love and thoughts are with his extraordinary family.”
“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”
~Stephen Hawking
