Stephen Hawking, a world renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist, is credited with his work on the beginnings and design of the universe, covering the Big Bang to black holes. His contributions to science have revolutionized the field of physics for other scientists to further their research.
Stephen Hawking was born in 1942 in Oxford, England. He studied physics at University College, quickly gaining attention from his peers and professors for his exceptional work. He earned his PhD at Cambridge, and continued his work in general relativity, specifically, the physics of black holes. At the start of his remarkable career in the early 1960s, he developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a motor neuron disease. Despite the uncertainty surrounding his future, the disease, which restricted him to his wheelchair and computerized voice, did not stop him from pursuing his work.
Stephen Hawking focused his studies in the field of general relativity, primarily on the physics of black holes. One of his theories proposed what happened before the Big Bang. He suggested that various “mini black holes” containing as much as one billion tons of mass, only occupied the space of a proton. Hawking used the laws of relativity and the laws of quantum mechanics to justify his theory. Three years later, in 1974, he suggested that black holes radiate subatomic particles until there is no more energy to use, and it finally explodes. With his theory, he provided some information about black holes that others thought would be impossible to know.
Hawking is the author of several books for the general public to read that might not have the same scientific background as him. Some of his books include A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (1988) and The Grand Design (2010; coauthored with Leonard Mlodinow). Hawking’s career is one that was so impressive it continues to inspire passion for other scientists and hope for the future.
Work Cited
Sources Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Stephen Hawking". Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Jun. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Stephen-Hawking. Accessed 18 June 2024.
Hawking, Stephen W., and Roger Penrose. “The Nature of Space and Time.” Scientific American, vol. 275, no. 1, 1996, pp. 60–65. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24993270. Accessed 18 June 2024.
Pattenden, Andre. “Professor Stephen Hawking.” University of Cambridge, 14 Mar. 2018, www.cam.ac.uk/stephenhawking.
Tillman, Nola Taylor, and Daisy Dobrijevic. “Stephen Hawking Biography: Theories, Books & Quotes.” Space.Com, Space, 1 Dec. 2021, www.space.com/15923-stephen-hawking.html.
