70th birthday of Stephen Hawking

On 8th of January 2012 Sir Stephen Hawking celebrated his 70th birthday.
The name of Stephen Hawking has, by now become a household name in the entire world. No one else can be credited to have popularized science and particularly space science, as much as he has done. Hawking's primary research area is theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity.

Since 1979 he has held the post of Lucasian Professor at Cambridge, the chair held by Isaac Newton in 1663. Professor Hawking has over a dozen honorary degrees and was awarded the CBE in 1982. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Science. Stephen Hawking is regarded as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Einstein.

Although search for Extra-terrestrial life has been going on for more than 50 years now, Stephen Hawking was the person who warned us that, if an intelligent species finds out about earth, the outcome may not be happy for us. If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.

He is not a science fiction writer, he is a theoretical physicist. But to his credit he can speak (or can narrate using a speech synthesizer), in such lucid language about such difficult topics as black holes, warmholes, space-time continuum, time-travel, supernova, life and death of galaxies that even student of secondary school can easily understand.



Stephen Hawking was detected with ALS, known colloquially in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease, at the age of 21, while he started his studies at the Cambridge University. Doctors said, he had at the most 2 year to live. Despite that, he pursued and completed his PhD.

Stephen Hawking is widely accredited as having established the existence of Black Holes, and now every astrophysicist has come to accept the existence of Black Hole.



Hawking's achievements were made despite the increasing paralysis caused by the ALS. By 1974, he was unable to feed himself or get out of bed. His speech became slurred so that he could be understood only by people who knew him well. In 1985, he caught pneumonia and had to have a tracheotomy, which made him unable to speak at all. A Cambridge scientist built a device that enables Hawking to write onto a computer with small movements of his body, and then have a voice synthesizer speak what he has typed. This, to me is a remarkable achievement, for any human being.

Despite ill health, he continues to be guest lecturer at California Institute of Technology since 1992, and every year he visits Caltech once every year for one month as a guest faculty.


In Hawking's many media appearances, he appears to speak fluently through his synthesizer, but in reality, it is a tedious drawn-out process. Hawking's setup uses a predictive text entry system, which requires only the first few characters in order to auto-complete the word, but as he is only able to use his cheek for data entry, constructing complete sentences takes time. His speeches are prepared in advance, but having a live conversation with him provides insight as to the complexity and work involved.

Hawking's belief that the lay person should have access to his work led him to write a series of popular science books in addition to his academic work. The first of these, A Brief History of Time, was published on 1 April 1988 by Hawking, his family and friends, and some leading physicists. It surprisingly became a best-seller.

About his belief in god:"If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we should know the mind of God." In the same book he suggested the existence of God was unnecessary to explain the origin of the universe.

Hawking regarded the concept of Heaven as a myth, stating that there is "no heaven or afterlife" and that such a notion was a "fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

Hawking contrasted religion and science in 2010, saying: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."