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Stephen Hawking, with his typing computer system

Stephen Hawking, ane of the most profound thinkers and physicists in human history, has died at the historic period of 76. He was the Director of Research at the Center for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge and a historic author whose bookA Cursory History of Time was an international bestseller.

Hawking'due south achievements and contributions to physics were all the more than remarkable given the physical limitations of his trunk. He was diagnosed with a rare, slow-moving form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (known in the US as Lou Gehrig'south disease) at the age of 21 and given simply two years to live. As the disease progressed, Hawking steadily lost muscle coordination, including the ability to write. Unable to write equations in the standard fashion, he developed a method of seeing equations in his mind in terms of geometry.

Hawking is known for proving that black holes emit radiations (now known as Hawking radiation) and for so many other diverse predictions and arguments, I honestly don't know how to summarize them succinctly. The Atlantic has an in-depth commodity discussing how Hawking proved particles aren't actually existent because they don't persist in every frame of reference. Hawking wasn't always right — he famously bet that the Higgs boson would never be establish — but he admitted when he was wrong and proved willing to challenge conventional thinking and explanations, from his own initially controversial claims about Hawking radiations to theories about the germination and construction of the universe.

I was x when my father gave me a copy of A Cursory History of Fourth dimension and I cannot claim to have understood the book specially well. But ane matter that struck me, even at a young age, was one of the kickoff stories in the volume. A boyfriend gives a lecture on the nature of the universe, only to be approached by an older woman who informs him that he'south wrong and the world actually rests on the back of a turtle. When he asks her what'south underneath the turtle, she replies smugly that information technology's "turtles all the way downwardly."

The apocryphal story stuck with me because information technology highlights two dissimilar ways of understanding the universe — by received belief and past empirical observation and analysis. As a physicist, Hawking was in a unique position to extend and expand our knowledge of the universe effectually us, and he did so up until the end of his life. His warnings on the dangers of AI and the demand for the human race to institute itself in new homes throughout the solar system, and eventually the milky way, were a reminder that nosotros must exist conscientious in how we utilise technology and mindful of the long-term threats to our ain existence.

In a world where far too much attending is often paid to short-term news cycles or quarterly reports, Hawking'due south focus on fundamental questions of the universe, including how it came into beingness and what it would mean for it to end was a reminder that the short-term, while important, isn't the end-all, be-all of our lives. There are greater questions to answer and deeper music to be heard. Nosotros — by which I mean humanity itself — are immeasurably richer thanks to Hawking'southward contributions and will be poorer for his loss.