The British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who challenged the expectations of an early death to become the most popular scientist in the world, died on Wednesday at age 76 in the English university city of Cambridge. His health had deteriorated in recent months and he "died out in his sleep".
Hawking, whose book "History of Time" appeared in 1988, became a bestseller and catapulted him to stardom, dedicated his life to unraveling the mysteries of the universe and, although he never won the Nobel Prize, was more celebrated than any of the that they did
He was born in Oxford, the son of professors, and died in Cambridge, two great British centers of knowledge in which he highlighted this "brilliant and extraordinary mind", in the words of Prime Minister Theresa May.
This Wednesday, in Cambridge, the signs of regret were combined with those of gratitude.
The flags in the faculty Gonville and Caius, in which he was a professor, flown at half mast and students and teachers signed the book of condolences.
His brilliant ideas and ingenuity won him admirers from all walks of life, far beyond astrophysics, and he came to be compared with Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton, something he disdained.
Hawking defied the doctors' predictions, which in the mid-1960s gave him only a few years to live after he was diagnosed with an atypical form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease that attacks the motor neurons responsible for controlling voluntary movements and that left him in a wheelchair.
The rest of his life, he used to say, was "a gift."
The disease left him progressively paralyzed, to the point that he could only communicate through a computer that interpreted his facial gestures thanks to the only muscle he controlled, that of the cheek.
Born on January 8, 1942, 300 years exactly after the death of the father of modern science, Galileo Galilei, Stephen William Hawking became one of the best considered scientists in the world and entered the pantheon of the titans of science .
Much of his work focused on uniting relativity (the nature of space and time) and quantum theory (the physics of the smallest) to explain the creation and functioning of the cosmos.
"My goal is simple," he said once. "It is to fully understand the universe, why it is as it is and why it simply exists".
Hawking was an early advocate of the Big Bang theory to explain the origin of the Universe.
His subsequent research showed that black holes emitted radiation, "Hawking radiation," as it is known.
Black holes were named because they were believed to be so massive that even light could not escape them, but Hawking showed that some particles could escape due to the effects of quantum mechanics.
Its popularity took to him named and characterized in series of television like "Star Trek" and "The Simpsons" and its voice appeared in the songs of Pink Floyd.
Peace to the remains of this extraordinary scientist ...