March 14, 2018, Stephen Hawking, the world-renowned theoretical physicist, passed away at the age of 76, according to foreign media reports on the same day.多家 media quoted a spokesperson for Hawking's family with this news.
Stephen William Hawking, born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford, England, is a British theoretical physicist. His representative works include "A Brief History of Time," "The Universe in a Shell," "The Grand Design," and others.
Hawking was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 21, becoming paralyzed and unable to speak, with only three fingers in his hand movable. From 1979 to 2009, he served as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, with his main research areas being cosmology and black holes. He proved the singularity theorems and the area theorem of general relativity, proposed the theory of black hole evaporation and the model of the universe with no boundaries, and took an important step in unifying the two fundamental theories of 20th-century physics - Einstein's relativity and Planck's quantum mechanics.
Personal profile:
Stephen William Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018), a British physicist and cosmologist, currently serving as the Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Hawking has made many significant contributions, most notably his collaboration with Roger Penrose in formulating the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems within the framework of general relativity, as well as his theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation (now known as Hawking radiation).
Hawking was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and had received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. From 1979 to 2009, Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
Hawking has written many popular science books on his theories and general cosmology, which have been widely popular. Among them, "A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes" has spent a record 237 weeks on the Sunday Times bestseller list.
Hawking has ALS, a condition that gradually worsens with time. He is now paralyzed throughout his body, unable to speak, and must rely on a voice synthesizer to communicate with others. Hawking has been married twice and has three children.
Hawking has warned Earth's inhabitants that if extraterrestrials come to Earth, they will not fare well, much like the native Americans who disappeared after the arrival of Columbus.