Stephen Hawking

Born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England, Stephen Hawking was a theoretical cosmologist and popularizer of physics who proposed that black holes aren’t completely black. Hawking studied physics at Oxford University and astrophysics at Cambridge University. At age 21 he was diagnosed with an degenerative disease that was eventually identified as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. Much of Hawking’s research examined the interplay between general relativity and quantum mechanics. In 1974 he derived one of his most famous results: that quantum effects near a black hole’s event horizon will lead to the black hole’s emission of black body radiation. His 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, remains one of the most successful attempts to make modern cosmology accessible. James L. Anderson, in a review of the book for Physics Today, wrote that Hawking’s “exposition is usually so clear that one feels the missing equations [there is only one in the whole book] can be derived with just a bit of effort.” Hawking died at age 76 in March 2018, a remarkable 55 years after his ALS diagnosis. Physics Today published a compilation of tributes from his colleagues. Hawking once told an interviewer how he would like to be regarded: “As a scientist first, popular science writer second, and, in all the ways that matter, a normal human being with the same desires, drives, dreams, and ambitions as the next person.”

Date in History: 8 January 1942