British Scientist Stephen Hawking

Stephen William Hawking (January 8, 1942 - March 14, 2018) who study on theoretical physics and cosmology was a British physicist. He worked at the University of Cambridge as a professor by doing research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. In his goal, he focused on the study of gravity, black holes, and the universe. At the same time, he was an author as well, he wrote several books in cosmology and the most famous one is “A Brief History of Time” which was published in 1988 and explained the exist of the universe.

In this book, he used common expressions to explain what he observed from the universe which help public clearly understand the universe and be willing to read it. He said “My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all” (“Stephen Hawking”, 2018) Furthermore, Hawking had a motor neuron disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis 'ALS') which cause him gradually paralyzed.

Get quality help now

Doctor Jennifer

Verified writer

Proficient in: British

5 (893)

“ Thank you so much for accepting my assignment the night before it was due. I look forward to working with you moving forward ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

In his later life, he only can speak through a speech-generating device by using a single cheek muscle. However, he didn’t stop his step, still, give speeches and spread his idea. This is why a lot of people have admired him.

In Stephen Hawking’s family, his parents were all grated from Oxford University and the Hawking family was considered highly clever and somewhat abnormal by their neighbors because they all like to read books and even during their meal. Moreover, Hawking like science in 15 years old he build up a computer with his math teacher.

By inspired of his math teacher, Tahta, he decided to study math in the university. At that time, his family wanted him to apply to Oxford University; however, it was impossible to major in math at Oxford at that time, so instead of math he change to physics and chemistry. Therefore, Hawking entered Oxford with a scholarship in 17 years old. After he entered Oxford, he found the academic work is much easier than he thought before, then he started to join club and handed out with friends. Since he spends a lot of time outside studying, his finals become a challenge. Thus, in the finals, he decided to only answer theoretical questions which don’t require factual knowledge.

Then, he pass the test and graduated from Oxford University. After he graduated, he wanted to study cosmology, but there was no professor studying cosmology in Oxford. Hence, he decided to go to the University of Cambridge. Since he wanted to be a student of Fred Hoyle, the most famous cosmologist in the UK. However, after he started to study in Cambridge he felt disappointed because he had been assigned Dennis Sciama rather than Fred Hoyle. In addition, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at that time. It all made him felt depressed and want to quit his educate. Fortunately, by his professor, Sciama, encouraging, he chose to return to his work. Inspired by Roger Penrose's research about singularity, he started to use it be a topic of his thesis. It also began Hawking’s research on the universe and black holes.

In his study, Hawking focused on the universe especially black holes. His main contributions in science are two, one is the singularity theorem in 1970 and the other is Hawking radiation in 1974. The singularity theorem, in generally is that the universe must have from a point. Before he started to do research on initial singularity, the mathematician Roger Pentose already started it by using calculation. In 1968, Hawking verify that Big Bang which is the event that the universe started to found is really existing and it also can show the existence of an initial singularity. In 1970, He cooperate with Pentose to extend the singularity theorem that the universe was created from an initial singularity, and time and space are also created from this singularity.

This theorem is also based on Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity that if the universe has enough mass, the universe must start from a singularity. Stephen Hawking wrote these discoveries in his first book as well, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, which mainly explores the infrastructure of time and space and talk about the existence of singularity. After the study of the singularity came to an end, Hawking began to study black holes. In 1971, he published three papers. The first one was that the black hole exist in the universe and was made of high temperature and high pressure due to the Big Bang. The second paper talked about a black hole that only has three properties which are mass, angular momentum, and charge. Third stated that the surface area of the black hole would never decrease and this is also named as the second law of black hole dynamics. The reason why the surface of black hole cannot decrease was that no particles could escape from the black hole. So, the mass of the black hole would keep increasing. Moreover, the surface area was based on its mass. Therefore, as the mass kept increasing the surface area would never get smaller.