Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) was a British astrophysicist and popular science author. From 1979 to 2009, he was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. His research made major contributions to modern cosmology, general relativity and the physics of black holes. He also became widely known for his popular science books, including *A Brief History of Time* and *The Universe in a Nutshell*. Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 1963 and used a speech computer for verbal communication from 1985. He was a member of the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences and received numerous honours, including the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.