Stephen Hawking – the Great Physicist and Human

Born on January the 8th of the year 1942, he was one of the Britain’s greatest scientist (theoretical physicist). He grew up in oxford and he had been born into a highly intelligent/educated family. Both his parents had studied at Oxford University (they wanted Stephen to study medicine). At an early age in school, he was given the nickname “Einstein” because he showed great interest into science and maths. Due to this interested, he wanted to study maths at university however Oxford did not have a maths degree so he took to the sciences (physics and chemistry). After his graduation at Oxford he went to Cambridge to get his PHD.

Sadly during his time at Cambridge he started having health issues. His speech became slurred he was constantly clumsy dropping things for no apparent reason. He went through a series of tests, the result of these test showed the doctors that Stephen had a disease called ALS. The doctors estimated that he only had a few years to live.

Initially Stephen was depressed with the news but quickly realised he wanted to accomplish something during his life time. So with this mental drive and motivation he began to study harder than before. His main goal to earn his PhD before he died however he met a lovely a woman called Jane and between Jane and his work it gave him a reason to live. Despite the doctors first initial estimate Stephen has lived a full life with the help of advanced medicine. His condition increased over the years and in 1985 he caught pneumonia and tracheotomy operation which left him sppechless . However his body is restrained into a wheel chair while being silenced which is why he has the help of a voice synthesiser which is connected to a touch pad.

His main focus with academic work where on black holes and their behaviour and on theories of space time and quickly became an expert on relativity and the behaviour of black holes. One of his most known discovery suggested that black holes emitted some sort of radiation. Hawking’s discover proved that black holes didn’t have an enormous amount of gravity that would pull things in making the black hole smaller, but that it was radiation which is now called Hawking’s radiation.
In 1971 he suggested a new thought, that black holes had a large amount of mass even by being the size of a proton. In 1974 he suggested that A black hole will only stop when it exhausts its energy and explodes. Hawking’s work explained and explored the science behind black holes and their behaviour and their creation.

Due to the significance of Hawking’s work he earned multiple honours and awards. In 1074 he was elected for the royal society, he was one of the youngest among this group. He then became a professor at Cambridge to teach gravitational physics in 1977 and two years later he became Cambridge’s Lucasian professor of maths. This was a huge achievement which kept Hawking inspired and working through life. He was also made commander of the British Empire which is an unbelievable honour in 1982. In 2009 he received the U.S presidential medal of freedom.

Hawking specialised in certain areas such as cosmology and quantum gravity. He even wrote a book ” A Brief History Of Time” which sold 10 million copies. The success of this novel allowed him to write more books, these books gave him a platform to share his work and discoveries through to ordinary people. “the universe in a nutshell” was also a popular novel, so was ” George’s secret key to the universe” was a book to target children and give them a basic overview of what Stephen was studying.

His brilliant mind also brought dread into the world, for example he suggested that since there was a start to the universe there must be an end to it. Many were sceptical at first but then many scientist understood from his perspective how this would occur, once again black holes were the answer. They would tear apart the universe and it would just end. This suggested that Einstein’s theory and the quantum theory connect together. Using the two he discovered that black holes aren’t just dark but emit radiation. He predicted that black holes actually joined together to form the universe.

He also expressed his feelings that humans should spread out by living on different planets and making time travel possible. He said this would allow us to correct our world and reform it in a better for the universe. He believes all it takes is the discovery of an equation such as Einstein’s to make time travel possible.

I believe Stephen Hawking has inspired billions around the globe due to the fact his fought through disabilities and yet was still the smartest person in the room in all occasions, he shows that the best motivation is when you love what your doing which in his case was science. He made a goal to explore the laws of mother nature its self, the universe which has only been scratched by us humans. His determination gave us reason to believe it is possible that with technology we can go to other planets, we can go back in time, and that we can fix this world which we have diluted in pollution. He also welcomed the fact that there is extra terrestrial life on some planet that was more advanced than us and that they could share their knowledge with us. Others doubted him but the doubts is what drove him to greatness, people doubted him due to his state, people doubted that the universe was made by something else that wasn’t god. I have concluded that his work on black holes has opened up many opportunities for us in the future. We can only hope there is another great mind out there that can follow up on his notes and break through the mental and physical barriers that Stephen had. “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change”.