Early Life
Hawking studied physics at Oxford and cosmology at Cambridge, and was diagnosed with motor neuron disease (ALS) at age 21.
Career
With Roger Penrose he proved theorems about singularities and the origin of the universe, and he predicted that black holes emit radiation, now called Hawking radiation. He held the Lucasian Professorship of Mathematics at Cambridge from 1979 to 2009. His book A Brief History of Time (1988) sold more than 10 million copies.
Legacy
Hawking communicated through a speech-generating device after losing his voice in 1985. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and died on March 14, 2018, aged 76, the birthday of Albert Einstein.
Sources and further reading
Last updated: 2026-09-24