03/30/2026
/ Stephen Hawking /
"The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes."
"Stephen William Hawking was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who, at the time of his death, was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between 1979 and 2009, he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world. Hawking was born in Oxford into a family of physicians. In October 1959, at the age of 17, he began his university education at University College, Oxford, where he received a first-class BA degree in physics. In October 1962, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge where, in March 1966, he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology. In 1963, at age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease that gradually, over decades, paralysed him."
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Born: Stephen William Hawking, January 08, 1942, Oxford, England
Died: March 14, 2018, Cambridge, England
Resting place: Westminster Abbey
Fields: General relativity, quantum gravity
Institutions: California Institute of Technology, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
Education: University College, Oxford (BA), Trinity Hall, Cambridge (PhD)
Thesis: Properties of Expanding Universes (1966)
Other academic advisors: Robert Berman
"Reality on the Rocks" ("Beyond Our Ken", 1995)
