Stephen Hawking was born January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England. From an early age, he showed a passion for science and the sky. At age 21, while studying cosmology at Cambridge, Hawking was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Despite his debilitating illness, he has done ground-breaking work in physics and cosmology and his several books strive to make science accessible to everyone.
The eldest of Frank and Isobel Hawking's four children, Stephen William Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo, which has long been a source of pride for the noted physicist.At a time when few women thought of going to college, the Scottish-born Isobel earned her way into Oxford University in the 1930s, making her one of the college's first female students. Frank Hawking, another Oxford graduate, was a respected medical researcher with a specialty in tropical diseases .Stephen Hawking's birth came at an inopportune time for his parents, who didn't have much money. The political climate was also tense, as England was dealing with World War II and the onslaught of German bombs. In an effort to seek a safer place to have their first child, Frank moved his pregnant wife from their London home to Oxford. The Hawkings would go on to have two other children, Mary (1943) and Philippa (1947). A second son, Edward, was adopted in 1956.
Early in his academic life Stephen, while recognized as bright, was not an exceptional student. At one point in high school, his mother recalled, he was third from the bottom of his class.
Instead, Stephen turned his mind loose on pursuits outside of school. He loved board games, and with a few closfriends created new games of their own.At the age of 16 Stephen, along with several buddies, constructed a computer out of recycled parts for solving rudimentary mathematical equations.Hawking didn't put much time into his studies. He would later calculate that he averaged about an hour a day focusing on school.And yet he didn't really have to do much more than that.In 1962, he graduated with honors and moved on to Cambridge University for a Ph.D. in cosmology.While Stephen first began to notice problems with his physical health at Oxford-on occasion he would trip and fall, or slur his speech,he didn't look into the problem until 1963, during his first year at Cambridge.For the most part, Hawking had kept these minor symptoms to himself.For the next two weeks, the 21-year-old college student made his home at a medical clinic, where he underwent a series of tests.Eventually, however, doctors did inform the Hawkings about what was ailing their son: He was in the early stages of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease).
In a very simple sense, the nerves that controled his muscles were shutting down. Doctors gave him two and a half years to live.
But the most significant change in his life was the fact that he was in love. At a New Year's party in 1963, shortly before he had been diagnosed with ALS, Stephen Hawking met a young languages undergraduate named Jane Wilde. They were married in 1965.In a sense, Hawking's disease helped him become the noted scientist he is today,Hawking poured himself into his work and research.
Research on Black Holes:
While physical control over his body diminished (he'd be forced to use a wheelchair by 1969), the effects of his disease started to slow down.In 1974, Stephen Hawking's research turned him into a celebrity within the scientific world when he showed that black holes aren't the information vacuums that scientists had thought they were. In simple terms, Hawking demonstrated that matter, in the form of radiation, can escape the gravitational force of a collapsed star. Hawking Radiation was born.He was named a fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 32, and later earned the prestigious Albert Einstein Award.
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