Who’s Stephen Hawking And Why The World Is Mourning?

Yesterday all tabloids exploded with shocking news – Stephen Hawking has passed away. A poor man was only 76 and he was paralyzed for over a half of his life. But what is that significant contribution he brought to major science development? Why is a real superstar of science world? Everybody wanted to work with him, crowds of people visited his lections, and even TV shows invited Hawking as a guest star. What is so incredible about this man?

When studying his biography, he seems to be born in a regular family in Oxford to Frank and Isobel Hawking. His mother was Scottish. Despite their families’ financial constraints, both parents attended the University of Oxford, where Frank read medicine and Isobel read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Isobel was working as a secretary and Frank was working as a medical researcher at a medical research institute. They had 3 kids of their own and one was adopted. But the Hawkings had an amazing time together. Their son Stephen hardly stand out of all their children. But things changed after he graduated from high school and entered a college.

Oxford accepted him with pleasure, but Stephen was one of those students who are the laziest in their course. Maybe he was bored by those bulky lections, nobody can tell now. Hawking estimated that he studied about 1,000 hours during his three years at Oxford. These unimpressive study habits made sitting his finals a challenge, and he decided to answer only theoretical physics questions rather than those requiring factual knowledge.

He thought, examiners will give him the boot, but they were smart enough to notice a genius behind that slim guy in huge glasses. That was how he crawled to his doctoral study. After getting his natural science diploma, Stephen finally moved to something that interested him the most – the universe.

How did we all appear on this planet? If you heard of a Big Bang Theory (not the show), which is now the most likely to be true – you should go and thank Mr. Hawking for it. Together with it, he did all he could to solve the puzzle of our universe existence and functioning. Till his last days, Hawking was the most brilliant English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge.

But he was not only into science – Hawking was married twice and his first wife gave birth to two children who became that powerful support for their father. Especially after he lost the battle to his disease.

He was a healthy young man. And when his diagnosis was announced, Stephen could hardly believe his ears. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was slowly paralyzing his body. First, he enjoyed the ability to get up from a bed and laying down. He also could eat. But soon the only moving body part he had was his thumb. Later after flu complications, he underwent a surgery that took away his voice. But he never gave up, continuing his researches.

For his communication, Hawking initially raised his eyebrows to choose letters on a spelling card. But in 1986 he received a computer program called the “Equalizer” from Walter Woltosz, and that’s when his machine voice appeared. That was a true miracle. He could only move a muscle on his cheek and that was the way, he communicated with the world.

Hawking’s life motto was ”never give up”. Thanks to it he never stopped his work despite his need for medical and nursing treatment 24\7 and even took a trip to open space to experience zero gravity.

He was only 76 when his heart stopped and now the whole world is depressed over it…