Stephen Hawking, (8thJanuary 1942 – 14thMarch 2018)
Stephen Hawking was born on 8thJanuary 1942 in Oxford and died on 14thMarch 2018 in his home in Cambridge.
Stephen Hawking was famous for discovering how the world was created: he explained how black holes compressed into a ball and exploded to make the universe. He was also famous for surviving with a fatal disease that meant he lived most of his life unable to move. He used a speech synthesiser and computer to help people understand what he was saying. For many people, he was an inspiration.
He had two younger sisters, Mary and Philippa, and an adopted brother, Edward. Luckily, for a physicist, Stephen was born and died on two famous scientists’ anniversaries: he was born on the 300thanniversary of Galileo’s death and died on the 139thanniversary of Einstein’s birth.
In school, Stephen had the nickname of Einstein but, as a young boy, he was not so successful at school. He much preferred playing with his friends, playing board games and making fireworks. Also, he enjoyed making model planes and boats. One of his favourite things to do was taking clocks apart but, funnily enough, he couldn’t put them back together again.
In 1959, he went to Oxford University and studied chemistry and physics. He passed his degree at 21. A few weeks after getting his degree, he was taken to hospital because he wasn’t looking himself. After having lots of tests done, he was told he had motor neurone disease; they said he was unlikely to live more than two years.
Surprisingly, he survived much more than two years and lived a life much better than most. When he was 23, he got married to Jane Wilde. They had three children together: Robert, Lucy and Tim. When Lucy grew up, Stephen used to write space stories for young children with her.
To make science more popular, he was invited to go on a lot of international TV shows including Star Trek, The Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons and Comic Relief. In 2012, he opened the Paralympics.
Stephen always loved space but when he got ill he realised he would never be able to go. People arrange for him to go on a plane simulator called the ‘Vomit Comet’. It was the first time Stephen had been out of his wheelchair properly in 40 years.
Science today is much greater thanks to Stephen Hawking. If he hadn’t achieved what he did, we wouldn’t know as much as we do about space. Because of his great work, we know how the world was created and what black holes really are. He was an extraordinary person.