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On March 14, 2018, we mourned the loss of one of the greatest minds in modern history. Stephen Hawking was a true icon, a man who represented the very nature of human curiosity. Born in Oxford, on January 8, 1942, Hawking went on to become one of the greatest minds in history since Albert Einstein, as he demonstrated immeasurable resilience and courage to the world, continue making some of the biggest discoveries of the 20th century while suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease; also known as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a disease that slowly paralyzed him and led to his eventual death at the age of 76

 

Once he was diagnosed at the mere age of 21, he was given no more than 3 years to live. Miraculously, the disease progressed much slower than expected and Hawking managed to live another 55 years, marrying his wife Jane, in 1965 and witnessing the birth of all three of his children, Lucy, Timothy, and Robert. Dr. Stephen Hawking was a world-renowned theoretical physicist. He made some of the most important discoveries bringing new advances in our understanding of gravitation, cosmology, quantum theory, thermodynamics, and information theory. As a student at the University of Cambridge, he began to show a rising interest in black holes and the big bang theory while earning his Ph.D. He discovered that the Big Bang was much like a black hole in reverse and realized soon after published a paper how evidence showed that the universe must have begun on one singularity; a dimensional point in the center of a black hole that holds a huge amount of mass in an infinitely small amount of space.

 

Not long after, once Hawking’s disease had become much more severe, he came to a realization that black holes never decrease in size, they only increase. This one theory led to several others, as he began to connect different theories in physics that had never been affiliated with one another; general relativity and quantum theory. These two theories were always seen as incompatible by physicists all around the world. Dr. Hawking managed to connect this theory of “everything” to black holes and he discovered, perhaps his most important revelation of all, that black holes — those soul-sucking, dark holes of doom — are not actually black. In other words, Dr. Hawking was wrong. Black holes can decrease in size. As a black hole dies, it dissolves, leaking particles and radiation, becoming smaller and smaller over eons, until it explodes and dies. This was a discovery that changed our understanding of astrophysics forever. 

 

Hawking managed to become one of the world’s most awarded physicists, even though he was living with this terminal illness. He inspired millions of people around the world by not letting ALS stop him from making revolutionary contributions to the understanding of our universe. People from all over the world would come to see his lectures and would inspire hundreds of scientists to follow in his footsteps and change the world. He is a pillar of human inquisitiveness and he will be remembered as one of the greatest minds in human history. Dr. Stephen Hawking, you will be missed.