A bright star named Stephen Hawking - Young World Club 
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A bright star named Stephen Hawking

  • POSTED ON: 16 Mar, 2018
  • TOTAL VIEWS: 1786 Views
  • POSTED BY: Chari Vijayaraghavan
  • ARTICLE POINTS: 100 Points

It’s a strange feeling writing an ode to the great Stephen Hawking on World Pi Day. Stephen William Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author, and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. He has contributed significantly to the research of black holes and cosmology in general.

His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking had a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, “ALS”) that gradually paralysed him over the decades. Even after the loss of his speech, he was still able to communicate through a speech-generating device, initially through use of a hand-held switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle. He died on 14 March 2018 at the age of 76. Let’s take a look at some moments from his inspiring life…

Hawking at NASA's StarChild Learning Center, 1980sHawking with string theorists David Gross and Edward Witten at the 2001 Strings Conference, TIFR, IndiaHawking taking a zero-gravity flight in a reduced-gravity aircraft, 2007President Barack Obama talks with Hawking in the White House before a ceremony presenting him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 12 August 2009Stephen Hawking being presented by his daughter Lucy Hawking at the lecture he gave for NASA's 50th anniversaryHawking with University of Oxford librarian Richard Ovenden (left) and naturalist David Attenborough (right) at the opening of the Weston Library, Oxford, in March 2015.

Hawking also had a great fan following on mainstream media, featuring in The Simpsons, The Big Bang Theory and The Theory of Everything. At Young World Club, our focus on curiosity is reinforced by his quote – “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”

Source : Wikimedia Commons