STEPHEN HAWKING, THE GREAT INTERPRETER OF THE UNIVERSE

Although he was born in the early 1940’s and only learned to read at the age of eight, Stephen has become, for us and much of the world, the great explainer of all of the best researchers in physics and cosmology. He understood it all and proved many of the great theories to be correct.

He was afflicted with ALS at a very early age and today he lives only with an assisted breathing machine. He also cannot talk, but his brain is hooked to an artificial voice computer device that interprets his deep thinking through eye movements. So he conveys his thoughts and theories by blinking and moving his eyes.

Hawking’s greatest work, for the general world populace, was “A Brief History of Time”. It became so popular that it sold many more than 5 million copies. It has also been translated into more than 30 languages. Who is to know how many future scientists and theorists will be launched because they read this huge book. In it he explains in simple terms, so even the common man can understand, the great advances of science and mathematics of the past few hundred years.

He is widely regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein, in the early part of the 20th century. He far surpasses most of his contemporaries in intellect as well. He is also a world citizen and activist in all manner of causes. Stephen still teaches and works daily at Oxford and other top universities around the world. His most fun thing though is to play tricks, like a little boy would on some of his students, all the time urging them to stretch themselves to prove or disprove premises that he already has figured out.

In his mid-sixties now, we can only hope Stephen Hawking will survive a few more years. He still has so much creativity inside his mind. Who can imagine how someone like him with all of his physical troubles could postulate how black holes come about and then prove it to be true mathematically. And that is just a sampling of what continues to flow from his fertile mind.