“My
expectation were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been
a bonus”, Hawking said.
In 1963, Graduate student, Stephen Hawking learned he had
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a neuromuscular wasting disease also known as
Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was given only few years to live. The disease reduced
his bodily control to the flexing of a finger and voluntary eye movements but
left his mental faculties untouched. The young Hawking had been experiencing
occasional weakness and falling spells for several years.
The discovery of "Hawking Radiation", was based
on mathematical concepts arising from quantum mechanics, the branch of science
dealing with sub-atomic particles. It stated that this emission of radiation
eventually causes black holes to "evaporate" and vanish.
Although it became widely accepted, Hawking Radiation was
never proved by astronomers or physicists - if it had, it would almost
certainly have earned him the ‘Nobel Prize’. It was difficult to observe the
things he worked on.
Born 8th January 1942 on the 300th death anniversary of
Galileo Galilei, Astronomer and Ironically, Died on 14th march 2018, on the
birth anniversary of Albert Einstein.
In 1962, started research on cosmology at Cambridge
University because he found his studies in mathematics and physics so easy that
he rarely consulted a book or note. The only subject he found existing was
cosmology because, he said, it dealt with “the big question: Where did the
universe come from.”
In 1963, Diagnosed with motor neuron disease, which soon
confined him to wheelchair.
In 1970, Using quantum theory and general relativity he
was able to show that black holes can emit radiation. His success with proving
this made him work from that time on combining the theory of general relativity
with quantum theory.
In 1983, Hawking explains “no boundary proposal” that
this would mean : ... that both time and
space are finite in extent, but they don't have any boundary or edge. ... there
would be no singularities, and the laws of science would hold everywhere,
including at the beginning of the universe.
In 1988, Published “A Brief History of Time”, which broke
sales records in a way that it would have been hard to predict.
In 2014, Oscar-winning Biopic was made, “The Theory of Everything”
released.
Appeared in multiple shows in TV,
-The long-running animated show on television, “The Simpsons”. He appeared four times.
-Hawking made a guest appearance on the show “The Big Bang Theory.”
In this episode, Hawking reviews Sheldon’s paper and
finds a mistake on the second page.
“Too bad it was wrong,” Hawking said. “You made an
arithmetic mistake on Page 2. It was quite the boner.”
-Hawking appeared on “Star
Trek” playing poker with some of the universes greatest scientific minds.