Stephen William Hawking January 8, 1942-Cambridge, March 14, 2018) was a theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, cosmologist and British scientific popularizer. His most important works consisted in contributing, along with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding spatiotemporal singularities within the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes would emit radiation, what is known today as radiation from Hawking (or sometimes Bekenstein-Hawking radiation). One of the main characteristics of his personality was his contribution to the scientific debate, sometimes betting publicly with other scientists, the best known case is his participation in the discussion about the conservation of information in the black holes.
He was a member of the Royal Society of London, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. He was the head of the Lucasiana Chair of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge from 1979 until his retirement in 2009.
Hawking suffered from a motor neuron disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that was diagnosed at age 21 and that worsened his condition over the years until he was almost completely paralyzed5 and forced him to communicate through a device voice generator. He was married twice and had three children.
Death
On March 14, 2018, at 76 years of age, he died at his home in Cambridge (United Kingdom), according to a statement released by his family, whose content includes several English media. They did not disclose the cause of death , they simply mentioned that "he expired in peace".
WorkHawking has worked on the basic laws that govern the universe. Together with Roger Penrose, he showed that Einstein's general theory of relativity implies that space and time must have a beginning in the big bang and an end in black holes. Such results point to the need to unify General Relativity with quantum theory, the other great scientific development of the first half of the twentieth century. One consequence of such unification that he discovered was that black holes were not entirely black, but could emit radiation and eventually evaporate and disappear. Another conjecture is that the universe has no borders or limits in imaginary time. This would imply that the way the universe began is completely determined by the laws of science.
His numerous publications include The Large-Scale Structure of Space-Time with G. F. R. Ellis, General Relativity: Review of Einstein's Centennial with W. Israel, and 300 Years of Gravity, with W. Israel. Stephen Hawking has published three popular books: his sales success Brief history of time (History of time: from the '' big bang '' to black holes), Black holes and small universes and other essays, in 2001 The universe in one walnut shell, in 2005 A very short history of time, a version of his homonymous book adapted for a wider audience.
