Stephen Hawking PhD

Stephen Hawking Quick Facts

Main Areas: Theoretical physics and cosmology
Best Sellers: A Brief History of Time
Career Focus: Theoretical Physicist, Professor, Author, Speaker
Affiliation: Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge (1979-2009)

Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 (300 years after the death of Galileo) in Oxford, England.  He is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

 

Although he was born in Oxford, England, his parents' house was in north London.  During the Second World War, Oxford was considered a safer place to have babies. When he was eight, he moved to St. Albans, a town about 20 miles north of London. At the age of eleven, Stephen went to St. Albans School and then on to University College, Oxford; his father's old college. Stephen wanted to study Mathematics, although his father would have preferred medicine. Mathematics was not available at University College, so he pursued Physics instead. After three years and not very much work, he was awarded a first class honors degree in Natural Science.

 

Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology, there being no one working in that area in Oxford at the time. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

 

Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. With Roger Penrose he showed that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes. Hawking's key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein–Hawking radiation).[10]

 

His many publications include The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime with G F R Ellis, General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey, with W Israel, and 300 Years of Gravity, with W Israel. Stephen Hawking has three popular books published; his best seller A Brief History of Time (which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestsellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks), Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, and most recently in 2001, The Universe in a Nutshell.

 

Professor Hawking has twelve honorary degrees. He was awarded the CBE in 1982, and was made a Companion of Honor in 1989. He is the recipient of many awards, medals and prizes, is a Fellow of The Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

 

Stephen Hawking continues to combine family life (he has three children and three grandchildren), and his research into theoretical physics together with an extensive program of travel and public lectures.

 

Stephen Hawking is severely disabled by a motor neuron disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Hawking's illness is markedly different from typical ALS in that his form of ALS would make for the most protracted case ever documented. A survival for more than ten years after diagnosis is uncommon for ALS; the longest documented durations are thirty-two and thirty-nine years and these cases were termed benign because of the lack of the typical progressive course.

 

When he was young, he enjoyed riding horses and playing with other children. At Oxford, he coxed a rowing team, which, he stated, helped relieve his immense boredom at the university. Symptoms of the disorder first appeared while he was enrolled at University of Cambridge; he lost his balance and fell down a flight of stairs, hitting his head. Worried that he would lose his genius, he took the Mensa test to verify that his intellectual abilities were intact. The diagnosis of motor neuron disease came when Hawking was 21, shortly before his first marriage, and doctors said he would not survive more than two or three years. Hawking gradually lost the use of his arms, legs, and voice, and as of 2009 has been almost completely paralyzed.

 

During a visit to the research centre CERN in Geneva in 1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia, which in his condition was life-threatening as it further restricted his already limited respiratory capacity. He had an emergency tracheotomy, and as a result lost what remained of his ability to speak. He has since used an electronic voice synthesizer to communicate.

 

In Hawking's many media appearances, he appears to speak fluently through his synthesizer, but in reality, it is a tedious drawn-out process. Hawking's setup uses a predictive text entry system, which requires only the first few characters in order to auto-complete the word, but as he is only able to use his cheek for data entry, constructing complete sentences takes time. His speeches are prepared in advance, but having a live conversation with him provides insight as to the complexity and work involved. During a Technology, Entertainment, & Design Conference talk, it took him seven minutes to answer a question.

 

He describes himself as lucky despite his disease. Its slow progression has allowed him time to make influential discoveries and has not hindered him from having, in his own words, "a very attractive family."