Who is Stephen Hawking and why is he so revered?

Question

Who is Stephen Hawking and why is he so revered?

Answer 1

Stephen Hawking is a Cambridge University professor who is to this day hailed as being a physicist of immense intellect that surpasses others in his field of scientific research.  Dr. Hawking is quite an amazing analytical logical man of inspiring intellegence; all one has to do is hear his explanations of theory to gather this fact.

Back in the 60s, in the healthy prime of his life as an up and coming physicist---Dr. Hawking became stricken with MS ( I think ) that left his body limbs useless and his speech was gone.  Dr. Hawking, for years, has been left to use a wheelchair for mobility.

Dr. Hawking and several colleagues constructed one of the first super-computers to successfully incorporate optic manulipation---which allows Hawking to audibly "speak" quite fluently in ALL the worlds known dialects.  Albeit robotic in audio tone---the voice heard from this fascinating computer is Dr. Hawking's actual voice that was recorded and reproduced!!

Dr. Hawking defied circumstances that left him in a wheelchair unable to speak on his own---and showed the world one can be free fully while physically bound by the medical ravages keeping one in a bed or wheelchair.

Answer 2

I read somewhere that since he has ALS, that his brain doesn't have to deal with day to day stuff like walking and moving and such so has more 'time' for thinking and pondering and analysing.... makes sense to me!.... if all my head had to do was think....... er.... maybe not....!!....

whatever the reason, the man has impressed the science community!.... and all the stuff that's been designed so he can 'talk', type, etc sure has helped a lot of people with disability!...

Answer 3

Everything you ever wanted to know about Hawking...and more is here ==>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_...

Answer 4

Do you live in a fairy land which is isolated from the whole world?

Answer 5

Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 (300 years after the death of Galileo) in Oxford, England. His parents' house was in north London, but during the second world war Oxford was considered a safer place to have babies. When he was eight, his family moved to St Albans, a town about 20 miles north of London. At eleven Stephen went to St Albans School, and then on to University College, Oxford, his father's old college. Stephen wanted to do Mathematics, although his father would have preferred medicine. Mathematics was not available at University College, so he did Physics instead. After three years and not very much work he was awarded a first class honours degree in Natural Science.

Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology, there being no-one working in that area in Oxford at the time. His supervisor was Denis Sciama, although he had hoped to get Fred Hoyle who was working in Cambridge. After gaining his Ph.D. he became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College. After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973 Stephen came to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and since 1979 has held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. The chair was founded in 1663 with money left in the will of the Reverend Henry Lucas, who had been the Member of Parliament for the University. It was first held by Isaac Barrow, and then in 1663 by Isaac Newton.

Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe. With Roger Penrose he showed that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes. These results indicated it was necessary to unify General Relativity with Quantum Theory, the other great Scientific development of the first half of the 20th Century. One consequence of such a unification that he discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but should emit radiation and eventually evaporate and disappear. Another conjecture is that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary time. This would imply that the way the universe began was completely determined by the laws of science.

His many publications include The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime with G F R Ellis, General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey, with W Israel, and 300 Years of Gravity, with W Israel. Stephen Hawking has two popular books published; his best seller A Brief History of Time, and his later book, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays.

Professor Hawking has twelve honorary degrees, was awarded the CBE in 1982, and was made a Companion of Honour in 1989. He is the recipient of many awards, medals and prizes and is a Fellow of The Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Stephen Hawking continues to combine family life (he has three children and one grandchild), and his research into theoretical physics together with an extensive programme of travel and public lectures.

Answer 6

Professor! He currently holds Newtons chair at Cambridge. He is the current  guru since the last one, Einstein.

Answer 7

As the two people mentioned below, look him up.  He is the smartest man on the planet, or close to it.

The man cannot move his legs or arms, and controls his electric wheelchair with his one good hand, that pushes a lever.

He is extremely interesting to listen to.  Look up the Discover Channel.  Look up science, and you will find some copies of shows that he has been involved in.

Answer 8

A famous physicist.   Look him up on the internet instead of asking us about him.

Answer 9

Stephen William Hawking,  born 8 January 1942, is a British theoretical physicist. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes, and his popular works in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. These include the runaway popular science bestseller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

His key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation, or sometimes as Bekenstein-Hawking radiation. His scientific career spans more than 40 years and his books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity and world-renowned theoretical physicist. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Hawking is disabled by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis . The illness has progressed over the years and he is now almost completely paralysed

Answer 10

Stephen Hawking is one smart MF. Read his book: A Brief History Of Time. He is a professor at some university in England.