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Stephen Hawking was a scientist known for his work with black holes and relativity, and the author of popular science books like 'A Brief History of Time.'
Who Was Stephen Hawking?
Stephen Hawking was a British scientist, professor and author who performed groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology, and whose books helped to make science accessible to everyone.

At age 21, while studying cosmology at the University of Cambridge, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Part of his life story was depicted in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything.

Early Life
Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford, England. His birthday was also the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo — long a source of pride for the noted physicist.

The eldest of Frank and Isobel Hawking's four children, Hawking was born into a family of thinkers.

His Scottish mother earned her way into Oxford University in the 1930s — a time when few women were able to go to college. His father, another Oxford graduate, was a respected medical researcher with a specialty in tropical diseases.
Hawking's birth came at an inopportune time for his parents, who didn't have much money. The political climate was also tense, as England was dealing with World War II and the onslaught of German bombs in London, where the couple was living as Frank Hawking undertook research in medicine.

In an effort to seek a safer place, Isobel returned to Oxford to have the couple's first child. The Hawkings would go on to have two other children, Mary and Philippa. And their second son, Edward, was adopted in 1956.

The Hawkings, as one close family friend described them, were an "eccentric" bunch. Dinner was often eaten in silence, each of the Hawkings intently reading a book. The family car was an old London taxi, and their home in St. Albans was a three-story fixer-upper that never quite got fixed. The Hawkings also housed bees in the basement and produced fireworks in the greenhouse.

In 1950, Hawking's father took work to manage the Division of Parasitology at the National Institute of Medical Research, and spent the winter months in Africa doing research. He wanted his eldest child to go into medicine, but at an early age, Hawking showed a passion for science and the sky.

That was evident to his mother, who, along with her children, often stretched out in the backyard on summer evenings to stare up at the stars. "Stephen always had a strong sense of wonder," she remembered. "And I could see that the stars would draw him."

Hawking was also frequently on the go. With his sister Mary, Hawking, who loved to climb, devised different entry routes into the family home. He loved to dance and also took an interest in rowing, becoming a team coxswain in college.

Education
Early in his academic life, Hawking, while recognized as bright, was not an exceptional student. During his first year at St. Albans School, he was third from the bottom of his class.

But Hawking focused on pursuits outside of school; he loved board games, and he and a few close friends created new games of their own. During his teens, Hawking, along with several friends, constructed a computer out of recycled parts for solving rudimentary mathematical equations.

Hawking entered University College at the University of Oxford at the age of 17. Although he expressed a desire to study mathematics, Oxford didn't offer a degree in that specialty, so Hawking gravitated toward physics and, more specifically, cosmology.

By his own account, Hawking didn't put much time into his studies. He would later calculate that he averaged about an hour a day focusing on school. And yet he didn't really have to do much more than that. In 1962, he graduated with honors in natural science and went on to attend Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge for a Ph.D. in cosmology.

In 1968, Hawking became a member of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge. The next few years were a fruitful time for Hawking and his research. In 1973, he published his first, highly-technical book, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, with G.F.R. Ellis.

In 1979, Hawking found himself back at the University of Cambridge, where he was named to one of teaching's most renowned posts, dating back to 1663: the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.

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