All About Space Magazine Issue 79 Back Issue

REMEMBERING THE WORLD'S GREATEST SCIENTIST
On 14 March we woke to the news that world-renowned physicist Stephen
Hawking had peacefully passed away at his home in Cambridge at the age of 76, succumbing to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as motor neurone disease (MND). Hawking had outlived the life expectancy of two years that doctors had given him back in 1963, going on to become one of the greatest minds of our time and, at the time of his death, a recipient of numerous awards, an author of exceedingly successful popular science books, the director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge and a former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. Born Stephen William on 8th January 1942, exactly three hundred years after the death of Galileo, Hawkins was the eldest of four children, with two younger sisters and an adopted brother. This month we honour his memory with our special issue, with tributes from his daughter Lucy Hawking, friends and colleagues.