Stephen Hawking

NAME Stephen William Hawking

WHAT FAMOUS FOR Stephen Hawking was one of the most celebrated theoretical physicists of all time, best known for his groundbreaking work on black holes, cosmology, and quantum gravity. His 1988 book A Brief History of Time became a global phenomenon, making complex physics accessible to millions of readers.

BIRTH Stephen William Hawking was born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England. His birth date coincided with the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo, a fact that Hawking took great pride in throughout his life.

He was born during World War II; his parents had temporarily relocated from their home in Highgate, North London, to Oxford because the city was considered safer from German bombing raids. Germany was reportedly not bombing Oxford or Cambridge in an informal agreement to spare the two great English university towns.​

FAMILY BACKGROUND Stephen was the eldest of four children born to Frank and Isobel Hawking. His father, Frank Hawking, was a medical researcher specializing in tropical diseases who had studied medicine at Oxford University. His mother, Isobel Eileen Hawking (née Walker), was Scottish and had studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University in the 1930s—a time when few women attended university. Oxford only began granting degrees to women in 1920, making Isobel's achievement particularly notable.​

Stephen Hawking with his parents

Stephen had two younger sisters, Mary (born 1943) and Philippa (born 1947), and an adopted brother, Edward, who joined the family in 1956 when Stephen was 14. The Hawking family was considered highly intelligent and somewhat eccentric; dinner was often eaten in silence with each family member reading a book, and they kept bees in the basement and made fireworks in the greenhouse. The family car was an old London taxi.​

Frank Hawking's Yorkshire grandfather had been prosperous but over-extended himself buying farmland and went bankrupt during the agricultural depression of the early twentieth century. The family was saved from complete ruin when Stephen's great-grandmother opened a school in their home. Despite their families' financial constraints, both of Stephen's parents managed to attend Oxford University, a significant financial burden at the time.​

CHILDHOOD  In 1950, when Stephen was eight years old, his father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research, and the family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire. 

Stephen's mother would often lie in the backyard on summer evenings with her children, staring up at the stars. "Stephen always had a strong sense of wonder," she recalled. "And I could see that the stars would draw him". He loved to climb and, with his sister Mary, devised different entry routes into the family home. He was frequently on the go and loved to dance.​ (1)

Although Hawking was not initially successful academically and was known at school as an average student, his classmates nicknamed him "Einstein," presumably recognizing signs of his potential. With his friends, he enjoyed board games, manufacturing fireworks, making model aeroplanes and boats, and having long discussions about Christianity and extrasensory perception. 

From 1958, with the help of his mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta, Stephen and his friends built a computer from clock parts, an old telephone switchboard, and other recycled components. Hawking later said of Tahta: "Behind every exceptional person, there is an exceptional teacher".​ (2)

EDUCATION Stephen began his schooling at the Byron House School in Highgate, London. He later blamed the school's progressive methods for his failure to learn to read while there. 

In St Albans, the young Hawking briefly attended St Albans High School for Girls, which took boys up to the age of ten.​

Hawking attended St Albans School from the age of 11 after passing the eleven-plus examination a year early. His father wanted him to attend Westminster School, but Stephen was ill on the day of the scholarship examination, and his family could not afford the school fees without financial aid. Hawking remained at St Albans School, which he later said provided him with an education "as good as, if not better than" what he would have received at Westminster.​ (3)

In his last years at school, Hawking wanted to specialize in mathematics, inspired by his mathematics teacher. However, his father strongly opposed this idea, wanting him to study medicine instead, partly because he was concerned about job prospects for mathematics graduates. His father also wanted Stephen to attend University College, Oxford—his own alma mater—which had no mathematics fellow at the time.​

Hawking began his university education at University College, Oxford, in October 1959 at the age of 17. Although he wished to study mathematics, he took physics and chemistry instead since mathematics was not available. For the first eighteen months at Oxford, he was bored and lonely, finding the academic work "ridiculously easy". His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said: "It was only necessary for him to know that something could be done, and he could do it without looking to see how other people did it". Hawking estimated that he studied about 1,000 hours during his three years at Oxford—roughly one hour per day.​ (4)

During his second and third years, Hawking became more socially engaged. He joined the college boat club, the University College Boat Club, where he served as coxswain for a rowing crew. The rowing coach noted that Hawking cultivated a daredevil image, steering his crew on risky courses that led to damaged boats. Being a crew coxswain transformed both his personality and social life; he became a popular, lively, and witty college member interested in classical music and science fiction.​

Hawking's unimpressive study habits made sitting his final examinations challenging. A first-class honours degree was required for his planned graduate study in cosmology at Cambridge, so he decided to answer only theoretical physics questions rather than those requiring factual knowledge. The result was on the borderline between first- and second-class honours, requiring a viva (oral examination). When asked to describe his plans, Hawking said: "If you award me a First, I will go to Cambridge. If I receive a Second, I shall stay in Oxford, so I expect you will give me a First". He received a first-class BA degree in natural science (physics) in 1962.​ (4)

Hawking at Oxford source Reddit

After completing a trip to Iran with a friend, Hawking began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in October 1962. He was initially disappointed to find that he had been assigned Dennis William Sciama as a supervisor rather than noted astronomer Fred Hoyle, and he found his training in mathematics inadequate for work in general relativity and cosmology. However, his first year as a doctoral student became even more difficult when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.​

Hawking obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics from Cambridge in 1966. His thesis was titled "Properties of Expanding Universes". In 2017, he made his PhD thesis freely available online via the University of Cambridge's Open Access repository, resulting in over a million download attempts.​

CAREER RECORD 1965-2018 Research Fellow and Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge 

1968-1973 Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge 

1973-2018 Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP), Cambridge (from 1973).

1979-2009 Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge: One of the world's most prestigious academic posts, formerly held by Isaac Newton.

2007-2014  He founded the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at Cambridge, serving as its Director of Research until 2014.​

2009-2018 Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at DAMTP (from 2009).

APPEARANCE In his youth, he was tall and handsome, with dark hair and striking eyes. However at the age of 21 he was diagnose with severe motor neuron disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS) As his disease progressed, his body became severely disabled and confined to a motorized wheelchair  

For most of his adult life, Hawking could only control his wheelchair and communicate through minimal movements. Eventually, the only control he had over his body was in his eyes and fingers, and later just a single cheek muscle. Despite these physical limitations, he was often described as having an expressive face and maintaining a sense of presence and dignity.​

Hawking at the Bibliothèque nationale de France 2006

FASHION Hawking typically wore neat, yet casual attire—often a sweater or smart shirt over trousers, and later, a bomber jacket. He was frequently photographed in formal suits for public events, sometimes wearing a colourful cravat. His clothes were necessarily adapted for comfort and ease of care in his wheelchair.

CHARACTER Hawking was known for his fierce determination, intellectual brilliance, and resilience. He possessed a strong will and a refusal to let his disability define his life or limit his work. He could be stubborn, demanding, and had an impatient side, but he was also deeply committed to communicating science to the public.

His sharp mind was matched by his sharp tongue; when asked about his IQ, he quipped, “I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers.” (5)

SPEAKING VOICE After losing his natural speaking voice following a 1985 tracheotomy, Hawking communicated using a speech-generating device. His synthetic voice was created by Dennis H. Klatt, an MIT researcher who had been working on speech synthesis since the 1960s. Klatt developed an algorithm called KlattTalk or MITalk with three voices—"Perfect Paul," "Beautiful Betty," and "Kit the Kid"—created using recordings of himself, his wife, and his daughter. Hawking's voice, "Perfect Paul," was based on Klatt's own voice recordings.​

The voice was initially part of the DECtalk speech synthesizer and was used by the Speech Plus CallText 5010 synthesizer that Hawking received in 1988. The synthetic voice had what Hawking described as an accent "that has been described variously as Scandinavian, American or Scottish". (6)

Hawking became strongly attached to this voice. When offered upgrades over the years, he refused them. "I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it," Hawking said in 2006. Dennis Klatt, ironically, was losing his own voice to thyroid cancer while working on the technology; he died in 1988, but his voice lived on through Hawking.​ (7)

Hawking controlled his communication device initially through a handheld switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle that activated an infrared sensor. The system allowed him to select words and phrases that were then spoken by the synthesizer.​

SENSE OF HUMOUR Stephen Hawking was renowned for his wicked sense of humour and self-deprecating wit. When asked by the Radio Times what inspired him to keep going, he replied: "My work and a sense of humour". He added: "It's also important not to become angry, no matter how difficult life is, because you can lose all hope if you can't laugh at yourself and at life in general".​​ (8)

He made numerous television and film appearances that showcased his comedic timing, including The Simpsons (multiple episodes), The Big Bang Theory (multiple episodes), Futurama, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Little Britain. He once commented that "almost as many people know me through The Simpsons as through my science". When character Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory showed Hawking his thesis, Hawking pointed out an "arithmetic mistake on page two," causing Sheldon to faint. Hawking's response: "Great, another fainter".​ (9)

At the 2016 Pride of Britain Awards, when Prime Minister Theresa May presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award, Hawking thanked her before going for the jugular: "I deal in tough mathematical questions every day, but please don't ask me to help with Brexit".​ (1)

When asked at the Sydney Opera House in 2015 about the "cosmological effect" of Zayn Malik leaving One Direction, Hawking replied: "Finally, a question about something important. My advice to any heartbroken young girl is to pay close attention to the study of theoretical physics. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies another different universe. And in that universe, Zayn is still in One Direction".​ (1)

In 2009, Hawking threw a party for time travelers, but sent out the invitations only after the party had taken place. Nobody arrived, which pleased him—it proved his point that time travel wasn't really possible.​

His famous quote summarizing his philosophy was: "Life would be tragic if it weren't funny".​

RELATIONSHIPS Stephen Hawking married twice and had three children.​

First Marriage - Jane Wilde: Hawking met Jane Wilde at a New Year's Eve party in 1962, shortly before his ALS diagnosis. They became engaged in October 1964 and married on July 14, 1965, when doctors had already told him he had only two years to live. Jane believed her commitment could give him something to live for.​ 

They had three children together: Robert (born May 1967), Lucy (born November 1970), and Timothy (born April 1979). Jane served as Stephen's primary caregiver for many years while raising their children and pursuing her own PhD in Spanish poetry, which she received in April 1981.​

By the late 1970s, their marriage faced increasing strain. Jane experienced depression and exhaustion from the physical and emotional demands of caregiving. In 1977, she met Jonathan Hellyer Jones through a church choir; their friendship developed into a romantic connection by the mid-1980s, though Jane stated it remained platonic for years. Stephen accepted Jonathan's role, and he assisted with caregiving. Jonathan eventually moved into the family home.​

In February 1990, Stephen left Jane for Elaine Mason, a nurse on his caregiving team. They divorced in 1995. Jane married Jonathan Hellyer Jones in 1997.​

Second Marriage - Elaine Mason: Stephen's relationship with Elaine Mason began in the late 1980s. Elaine was one of his nurses, and her first husband, David Mason, had been an engineer who helped create Hawking's speech synthesizer. Mason divorced her husband, with whom she had two children, and married Stephen in September 1995.​

Their 11-year marriage was shrouded in controversy. In 2004, police launched an investigation into allegations that Elaine had physically abused Stephen. Witnesses reported seeing unexplained injuries on Hawking, including broken bones, cuts, and bruises, and observed profanity-filled outbursts directed at him. Lucy Hawking went to authorities with allegations that Elaine had broken her father's wrist.​

Both Stephen and Elaine denied the allegations, and Hawking stated: "I firmly and wholeheartedly reject the allegations that I have been assaulted". He added that because of Elaine "I am alive today". Two police investigations found no evidence of criminal behavior, as Hawking was unwilling to say how he had been harmed, and the inquiries were dropped.​

Stephen and Elaine divorced in 2006. After the divorce, Stephen reconciled with Jane and their children, and they were able to "associate freely again and enjoy many a family occasion together".​

Children: Robert Hawking became a software engineer for Microsoft and lives in Seattle with his wife and two children. As the oldest child, he often helped care for his father and, as his mother said, "had to do things for his father that children really shouldn't have to do".​

Lucy Hawking became a journalist and author who has written two adult novels and several science-based children's books, many co-authored with her father. She is divorced with one son, William, who has been diagnosed with autism. Lucy is vice president of the National Star College, dedicated to helping people with disabilities, and a trustee of the Autism Research Trust.​

Timothy Hawking, the youngest, was born after Stephen's speech had already deteriorated. In a rare interview, Timothy said: "My dad was able to speak with his own, natural voice for those first years, but it was incredibly difficult to understand what he was saying—particularly for me at such a young age. As a 3-year-old, I had no understanding of what he was saying. I didn't really have any communication with him for the first five years of my life". He added: "It was somewhat ironic that Dad losing his voice was actually the start of us being able to form a relationship". Timothy studied languages at Birmingham and Exeter universities and worked in marketing for Lego.​

There has been speculation about whether Timothy was Stephen's biological son, as Jane had grown close to Jonathan Hellyer Jones by the time of his birth, but Jane "says there is no doubt that Timothy is Stephen's child".​

MONEY AND FAME At the time of his death in 2018, Stephen Hawking had an estimated net worth of $20 million. His wealth came from multiple sources:​

Book Sales: Hawking's primary source of income was his bestselling books. A Brief History of Time alone earned him an estimated $6 million. The book sold over 10 million copies and was translated into 40 languages. It spent 237 weeks on the Sunday Times bestseller list and 147 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. His other books also sold well, contributing significantly to his fortune.​

Academic Salary: As a professor at Cambridge University, Hawking earned over £110,000 ($140,000) annually in the 2011-2012 academic year.​

Product Endorsements: Hawking made money through television advertising, including one for Specsavers. 

Prizes and Awards: In 2013, Hawking was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, which came with a $3-million award.​

Speaking Engagements: His talks and speeches commanded hefty fees.​

Despite his wealth, Hawking supported charitable causes, including his own foundation and SOS Children's Villages, which he began supporting in 1990.​

Stephen Hawking achieved worldwide fame not only for his groundbreaking work on black holes and cosmology but also for his wit, resilience, and public presence. Despite being almost completely paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Hawking became one of the most recognizable scientists in the world. His distinctive synthesized voice and sense of humor made him an unlikely pop culture icon.

FOOD AND DRINK Stephen Hawking's favorite food was curry, particularly chicken jalfrezi. His daughter Lucy sometimes cooked him Indian supper; he once recalled: "recently she cooked a curry—but she misjudged the strength of the chilli powder; and although it tasted great, it brought tears to my eyes!". He enjoyed Indian food because it was "spicy, delicious and mostly gluten-free," suiting his needs.​

He famously threw one of the most peculiar parties in scientific history — a party for time travelers. Held on June 28, 2009, at the University of Cambridge, it featured hors d’oeuvres and champagne, but Hawking sent out the invitations only after the event had taken place. No guests arrived, which he dryly noted as proof that time travel does not exist. (5)

In an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson recorded ten days before his death, Hawking revealed that he liked oysters and that his favorite drink was Pimms.​

MUSIC AND ARTS Stephen Hawking had a deep appreciation for classical music. "I first became aware of classical music when I was 15," he said. He built his own sound system by ripping out the mechanism of his family's old wind-up gramophone and installing a turntable and three-valve amplifier, making a speaker cabinet from an old bookcase with chipboard on the front. "The whole system looked pretty crude, but it didn't sound too bad," he recalled.​ (12)

The first piece of classical music he purchased was Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms—not for aesthetic reasons but because "LPs were very expensive so I couldn't afford any of them on a schoolboy budget. But I bought Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms because it was on sale. The record was rather scratched, but I fell in love with the third movement".​ 

His three favorite classical works were Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, Henryk Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 1 (he was drawn to its "haunting phrase in the first movement"), and Francis Poulenc's Gloria, which he counted among "a small number of works I consider great music". He also enjoyed Wagner's compositions.​ (13) 

While primarily interested in classical music, Hawking also attended popular music concerts. He saw Pink Floyd, Tracy Chapman, and Depeche Mode (though he noted his ears were "ringing for the next 24 hours" after sitting in front of the speakers). He attended a Status Quo concert but "left after 20 minutes—they were terrible," he said. Hawking's distinctive synthesized voice was sampled by Pink Floyd in the songs "Keep Talking" (1994) and "Talkin' Hawkin'" (2014), and by other artists including U2.​ (14)

LITERATURE Hawking wrote extensively himself, producing over 200 academic papers and numerous popular science books designed to make complex physics accessible to general readers. 

Hawking’s A Brief History of Time (1988) became an international bestseller, introducing complex cosmological ideas to a general audience. 

First Edition

His ex-wife Jane Hawking’s memoir, Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen (2007), later inspired the 2014 biographical film The Theory of Everything. When Jane saw the movie script, she deleted all the F-words, saying, “Scientists in the 1960s and 70s didn’t use the F-word, and I’m pretty sure they don’t now either.” Hawking himself described the film as “broadly true,” admitting that some scenes made him emotional. He even allowed the filmmakers to use his trademarked computerized voice, a rare and personal gesture. (5)

Beyond his own scientific writings, Hawking was interested in science fiction as a student.  The Hawking family's unusual dinner custom involved each member silently reading a book during meals.​

NATURE Though his body was confined, Hawking had an expansive view of the natural world. He studied the universe’s origins and the nature of black holes, exploring the laws that govern space and time. His fascination with the cosmos reflected a lifelong appreciation of the beauty and order of the universe, from the subatomic to the galactic.

He famously said: "Remember to look up 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. Be curious".​

HOBBIES AND SPORTS At Oxford, Hawking took up rowing and became a coxswain (the person who steers and directs the crew). His strong voice and light weight made him ideal for the position. The rowing coach noted that Hawking was skilled but had "a daredevil way of sometimes steering his boat through gaps so narrow that the shell returned to the boathouse with its blades damaged". Norman Dix, the college boatman, recalled: "Half the time I got the distinct impression that he was sitting in the stern of the boat with his head in the stars, working out mathematical formulae".​

Being a coxswain transformed his personality and social life, making him a popular member of the university's "in crowd". Rowing demanded many hours of practice—six afternoons a week—which cut into his laboratory work, leading him and fellow cox Gordon Berry to cut corners and fake parts of their experiments.​

Despite his illness, Hawking maintained an adventurous spirit. On his 60th birthday, he took a hot-air balloon flight. At age 65 in 2007, he experienced zero gravity during a parabolic flight aboard a specially modified Boeing 727. The flight, provided by Zero Gravity Corporation, gave him approximately four minutes of weightlessness across eight parabolic arcs. "It was amazing," Hawking said afterwards. "Space, here I come". He hoped this would prepare him for a future suborbital spaceflight with Virgin Galactic.​​

He also enjoyed racing his wheelchair around Cambridge and had accidents that resulted in broken bones. Timothy Hawking recalled that as a child, he would jump into his father's wheelchair to use it as a go-kart and program swear words into the voice machine.​

SCIENCE AND MATHS Stephen Hawking spent his life doing what most of us only pretend to understand — trying to figure out how the universe actually works. His field was theoretical physics and cosmology, which, for the uninitiated, means he studied the bits of the universe that make your brain hurt if you think about them for too long. Where most of us might see a starry sky and think, “That’s lovely,” Hawking saw a giant puzzle of time, space, and gravity just begging to be solved.

In the 1960s, while the rest of the world was listening to The Beatles and discovering color television, Hawking was teaming up with mathematician Roger Penrose to do something rather more abstract — proving that the universe began as a singularity. A singularity, to oversimplify horrifically, is a point so dense and compact that even the laws of physics give up trying to describe it. Their work showed that if you take Einstein’s general theory of relativity seriously, then the Big Bang wasn’t just a good idea — it was unavoidable.

It was an extraordinary achievement: a young man with a terminal diagnosis proving, more or less, that everything began with an impossible explosion from an infinitely tiny dot.

Once Hawking had established how the universe began, he moved on to how it might end — specifically, by falling into black holes. In the 1970s, he demonstrated that black holes follow something eerily similar to the laws of thermodynamics, meaning they can never decrease in surface area. This became known as Hawking’s area theorem, and it gave physicists the deeply unsettling notion that black holes might behave more like living things than cosmic garbage disposals.

Hawking’s work hinted at a strange kinship between the chaos of space and the predictability of a steam engine — except that in this case, the “engine” could swallow suns whole.

Then came 1974, when Hawking did something truly impolite to physics: he made black holes leak. Using the unholy marriage of quantum mechanics and relativity, he proved that black holes aren’t completely black at all — they emit radiation. Now known as Hawking radiation, it arises from pairs of subatomic particles that appear at the edge of the event horizon — one falls in, the other escapes, and voilà: the black hole loses a tiny bit of energy.

The idea was so bold that many scientists initially thought Hawking had lost his marbles (or what was left of them after years of cosmology). But by the late 1970s, his calculations were recognized as one of the greatest breakthroughs in theoretical physics. The astonishing conclusion: black holes, those gluttonous monsters of space, could eventually evaporate and explode.

Hawking himself explained the effect with characteristic understatement — as if discovering that black holes could die was no more surprising than finding an extra biscuit in the tin.

The radiation discovery, however, led to a headache known as the information paradox. If black holes could evaporate, then all the information about whatever fell into them — stars, planets, the occasional overconfident astronaut — would disappear forever. This, according to quantum mechanics, was simply not allowed. Nature, you see, is supposed to keep immaculate records.

The paradox launched decades of argument among physicists. Hawking’s initial position was that information does vanish, which horrified his colleagues. Later in life, he half-jokingly conceded he might have lost a bet or two on the matter. Still, the question remains one of physics’ juiciest unsolved mysteries.

Hawking’s lifelong dream was to produce what Einstein never could: a theory of everything — a single framework that could explain both the vastness of galaxies and the jittery weirdness of quantum particles. He was an enthusiastic proponent of the “many-worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics — the idea that every choice you make spawns a parallel universe where you did the opposite. (In one universe, you’re reading this on your phone; in another, you sensibly went outside.)

In the end, Stephen Hawking managed to do something astonishing: he turned the impossible — communicating the mechanics of the cosmos from a wheelchair using a single cheek muscle — into something deeply human, funny, and profoundly inspiring. He didn’t just explain the universe; he made it feel, for a moment, like we might almost understand it too.

PHILOSOPHY & THEOLOGY Stephen Hawking's views on philosophy and theology evolved throughout his life, moving from apparent openness to religion toward explicit atheism.​

In his 1988 book A Brief History of Time, Hawking wrote statements that some interpreted as suggesting belief in God. He wrote of "the mind of God" and stated: "It would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we should know the mind of God". However, he later clarified that he used "God" in an impersonal sense, like Einstein did, to mean the laws of nature: "knowing the mind of God is knowing the laws of nature".​

By 2010, Hawking had become explicitly atheistic. In his 2010 book The Grand Design (co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow), he wrote: "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing". He argued: "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going".​

He believed that science, not theology or philosophy, holds the answers to the deepest questions about human existence and the universe. In The Grand Design, Hawking controversially declared: "Philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge". This statement drew criticism from professional philosophers.​

In his final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions (published posthumously in 2018), Hawking stated clearly: "It's my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate". He explained: "I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science".​

Despite his atheism, Hawking met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in 2008 and was a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.​ When he met Pope Benedict, the Pope knelt beside Hawking’s wheelchair to hear him better — prompting one scientist to joke, “Things certainly have changed since Galileo.” (5)

POLITICS Stephen Hawking's political views were influenced by his mother, Isobel, who was distinctly liberal and served on the St Albans Liberal Association in the 1950s.​

Hawking used his public platform to advocate for science funding, disability rights, and global cooperation. He warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence, climate change, and nuclear war, urging humanity to act wisely in shaping its future.

SCANDAL Hawking’s personal life occasionally drew public attention. His separation from Jane Hawking and subsequent marriage to his nurse, Elaine Mason, was widely covered in the media, though Hawking himself largely avoided gossip and preferred to focus on his work.

MILITARY RECORD Hawking's father, Frank Hawking, had attempted to volunteer for military service during World War II but was assigned instead to medical research.​

Hawking condemned Israel's actions in Gaza and war in general, viewing it as a useless, mindless exercise that rarely accomplishes anything of value.

HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS In 1963, at age 21, while in his first year of graduate study at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking began experiencing increasing clumsiness and falling frequently. After his 21st birthday, his father took him to the family physician, who sent him to the hospital for tests. After numerous tests, doctors diagnosed him with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neurone disease or Lou Gehrig's disease.​

ALS is a fatal, paralytic disorder resulting from degeneration of motor neurons in the spinal cord and brain. The disease leads to gradual decline of the brain's ability to control muscles, causing progressive weakness, difficulty speaking, swallowing, and eventually breathing. Doctors told Hawking he had only two years to live.​

The disease progressed more slowly than expected. By the late 1960s, Hawking experienced difficulties writing. In the 1970s, he began having trouble speaking. In 1985, while on a trip to CERN in Switzerland, he caught pneumonia and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors offered to turn off the ventilator and end his life, but his wife Jane refused. He underwent a tracheotomy, after which he never regained the ability to speak naturally.​

Eventually, the disease left him almost completely paralyzed. The only control he had over his body was in his eyes and a single cheek muscle, which he used to control his wheelchair and communication device.​

Despite being confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak, Hawking lived life fully, both professionally and personally. He married twice, had three children, attended scientific conferences on every continent including Antarctica, and maintained his sense of humor.​

In 1985, while on a trip to CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland, Hawking caught pneumonia that nearly killed him.​

Hawking continued working and making public appearances until shortly before his death. He never lost his zest for life and enjoyed racing his wheelchair around Cambridge, even having accidents that resulted in broken bones.​

HOMES Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford but his family lived in Highgate, North London. In 1950, when Stephen was eight, the family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire, when his father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research.​

The St Albans family home was described as large, cluttered, and poorly maintained. It was a three-story fixer-upper that never quite got fixed. The family kept bees in the basement and made fireworks in the greenhouse.​

After moving to Cambridge for graduate study in 1962, Hawking remained based in Cambridge for the rest of his life.​

In 1990, Hawking moved into a newly-built ground-floor flat at Pinehurst South, Cambridge, becoming the first resident. He lived there with his second wife Elaine Mason from 1990 to 2000. The three-bedroom property was located about a 20-minute walk from Gonville and Caius College. The flat was specially adapted for his disability: the video entrance system screen was set at an angle so he could view it from his wheelchair, a brass plate was added to the bottom of the front door to prevent wheelchair damage, and he requested oak flooring in the dining room. He converted an en-suite bedroom into a study where he published collections of his articles on black holes and the Big Bang. The property featured a large reception area, courtyard-style terrace with gated access, a garage, and off-street parking.​​

In 2000, Hawking moved to a new chalet-style house nearby, designed by local architect Stefan Zins. He reportedly shared a "$3.6 million chalet-style home in Newnham, an expensive section of Cambridge" with Elaine. After their 2006 divorce, details of their property settlement were not revealed.​

TRAVEL Despite being wheelchair-bound, Stephen Hawking traveled extensively throughout his life.​His attendance at scientific meetings and conferences brought him to every continent, including Antarctica. In 1975, he completed a year-long residency at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California. He was appointed Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Caltech in 1974 and spent about a month there almost every year thereafter. He also traveled to Moscow for discussions with Soviet physicists.​

 In 1979, shortly before the birth of his third child Timothy, Hawking took a trip to Corsica where he was lecturing at a summer school. The family also spent four months in Mallorca visiting Isobel Hawking's friend Beryl and her husband, poet Robert Graves.​

DEATH Stephen Hawking died peacefully at his home in Cambridge, England, in the early hours of Wednesday, March 14, 2018, at the age of 76. The date of his death coincidentally fell on Pi Day (3.14) and the 139th anniversary of Albert Einstein's birth.​

His three children, Lucy, Robert, and Timothy, issued 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 humour 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".​

A book of condolence was opened at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. The college flag flew at half-mast to mark the death of "the most famous Caian of recent times". Professor Sir Alan Fersht, Master of Caius, dubbed Hawking "the most famous scientist since Einstein".​

Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and former President of the Royal Society, paid tribute: "Stephen was far from being the archetype unworldly or nerdish scientist—his personality remained amazingly unwarped by his frustrations and handicaps. He had robust common sense, and was ready to express forceful political opinions".​

His ashes were interred between Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin in Westminster Abbey’s Scientists’ Corner. The stone above his grave is inscribed with his equation for black hole temperature.

To honor him, the European Space Agency beamed his voice toward the nearest known black hole, 3,500 light-years away. His DNA was also preserved on the International Space Station’s Immortality Drive — a poetic nod to his lifelong quest to understand the universe. (5)

APPEARANCES IN MEDIA Stephen Hawking made numerous appearances in popular culture, becoming as well known for his media presence as for his scientific work.​​

1. Television:

The Simpsons: Hawking appeared in multiple episodes, beginning with "They Saved Lisa's Brain" (1999). He once said "almost as many people know me through The Simpsons as through my science". His wheelchair was equipped with gadgets including helicopter blades and a spring-loaded boxing glove. He was given his own Simpsons action figure.​

The Big Bang Theory: He appeared in multiple episodes, most memorably pointing out an "arithmetic mistake" in Sheldon Cooper's thesis, causing Sheldon to faint.​

Star Trek: The Next Generation: In the 1993 Season 6 finale "Descent," Hawking played himself in a poker game with Data, Einstein, and Newton, winning by bluffing Einstein. He became the only person to play himself on Star Trek.​

Futurama: He made several appearances in this science-fiction comedy series.​

Little Britain: He appeared in a Comic Relief sketch where his character turned into a Transformer and killed his patronizing carer.​

Monty Python Live: In 2014, he performed at the Monty Python Live Shows, running over Professor Brian Cox before singing the Galaxy Song.​

Other appearances included Red Dwarf, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and various documentaries.​

2. Radio: His most recent appearance was broadcast in March 2018, just days before his death, as the voice of the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy Mark II in the BBC Radio 4 adaptation.​

3. Film: Hawking's life was portrayed in multiple films:

The Theory of Everything (2014): Eddie Redmayne won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Hawking. The film focused on his relationship with first wife Jane and required Hawking's personal permission to use his trademarked voice.​

A 2004 BBC TV drama featured Benedict Cumberbatch as Hawking.​

Errol Morris's 1991 documentary A Brief History of Time combined material from Hawking's book with interviews featuring Hawking, his colleagues, and family.​

4. Music: Hawking's distinctive synthesized voice was sampled in songs by Pink Floyd ("Keep Talking" from The Division Bell and "Talkin' Hawkin'" from The Endless River) and U2. 

ACHIEVEMENTS Discovered Hawking radiation, reshaping our understanding of black holes.

Authored A Brief History of Time, one of the best-selling science books in history.

Served as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a post once held by Isaac Newton.

Continued groundbreaking research despite severe disability.

Inspired millions to look at the stars — and to keep talking.

Sources (1) Biography.com (2) St Albans School (3) MacTutor (4) About Stephen Hawking (5) Encyclopaedia of Trivia (6) Mashable (7) Beyond Words (8) Radio Times (9) The Standard (10) Newsweek (11) Independent (12) Interlude (13) University of Cambridge (14) Ultimate Classic Rock (15) Hear The Boat Sing (16) New Scientist