Professor Stephen Hawking

Professor Stephen Hawking's groundbreaking research in the fields of cosmology and theoretical physics has transformed much of science fiction into science fact, and has inspired many as well as myself. Through his published works we are given a working knowledge of the vast phenomena that surrounds the world we live in, giving the realization that there is more than meets the eye.

Stephen hawking was born on January 8, 1942 to Dr. Frank Hawking a research biologist and Isobel Hawking. He had two younger sisters, Philipa and Mary and an adopted brother Edward. His parents moved from London to oxford while his mother was pregnant with him because London was under attack at the time by Luftwaffe and their parents desired a safer location for the birth of their first child. In 1950, his family moved to St. Albans, Hertfordshire where he attended St. Albans high school for Girls from 1950 to 1953 (boys were only allowed to attend until the age of ten). Then he attended St. Albans school where he was a good but not exceptional student. He maintained connections to the school and gave his name to one of the four houses and to an extracurricular science lecture series where he gave a lecture and gave lengthy interviews to pupils working on the school newspaper.

Hawking has always been interested in science; his only inspiration was his mathematics teacher, DikranTahta. However, his father did influence his choice in university. Originally, he wanted to study mathematics but his father wanted him to attend Oxford which did not have a mathematics fellow at the time. Once at Oxford, hawking specialized in physics. After receiving his B.A. degree at oxford in 1962 he decided to leave when he discovered that he was more interested in theory than in observation. Abandoning Oxford for Trinity hall, Cambridge, he engaged in the study of theoretical astronomy and cosmology. His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said in The New York Times Magazine:

It was only necessary for him to know that something could be done, and he could do it without looking to see how other people did it. [...] He didn't have very many books, and he didn't take notes. Of course, his mind was completely different from all of his contemporaries.

Of all Hawking's additions to science, he is best known for his controversial theories on the nature of black holes. For 30 years his investigations scrutinized on his theory that a black hole would slowly burn itself out, vanishing from space along with everything that had been pulled into it. This defied one of the most fundamental laws of physics; that information is never lost. Called "The information paradox", Hawking's theory has been the subject of zealous investigation in the scientific world. In 2004 Hawking himself solved this paradox by showing that information, in one form or another, does eventually leak out of a black hole, and so is not lost.

Stephen Hawking