Stephen William Hawking

Hawking, Stephen William (1942– ), British theoretical physicist and cos-mologist who has applied general relativity and quantum mechanics to the theory of black holes in novel ways and produced results of great originality. His book A Brief History of Time (1988) helped popularize current thinking on the development of the universe. He holds the post of Lucasian professor of mathematics, once held by Sir Isaac Newton. He has done all of this while suffering from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).

See also: Black hole.