The Cosmic Hero, Stephen Hawking dies aged 76

The fourteenth of March, once cherished for the birth of a genius- Albert Einstein, will now be a day of mourning. Today, the world lost not only an extraordinary mind, an unbelievably strong human being, but also a wonderful individual who inspired so many young minds. Today, we lost Stephen Hawking. He died at the age of 76 at his home in Cambridge, in the early hours of Wednesday.

Hawking at the age of 22 was given only two years to live after being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neuron disease, that left him in a wheelchair. After a life-threatening surgery, he also lost his voice. Beating the odds, much to the surprise of his doctors, he went on to live for another half a century.

During this period, Hawking was determined to contribute as much as possible before his demise. His first major breakthrough came in 1970, when he applied the mathematics of black holes to the universe and showed that a singularity, a region of infinite curvature in spacetime, lay in our distant past: the point from which came the big bang.

He proposed various other theories that shook the world, mostly based on the study of black holes. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and has been awarded the Eddington Medal and the Pius XI Gold Medal, followed by the Dannie Heineman Prize, the Maxwell Prize and the list goes on.

He’s known for his book ‘A Brief History of Time’, meant to be a simplified version of cosmology for the masses, an instant bestseller. 

“My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way,” Hawking once wrote, that his situation presented him with the time to clearly think through the problems of physics. Although described as eccentric and mischievous by close friends and family, he was loved by everyone.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web, was one of the first to react to news of his demise, saying on Twitter: "We have lost an epic personality and a brilliant soul".

NASA also tweeted, saying: “His theories unlocked the universe of possibilities that we & the world are exploring. May you keep flying like Superman in microgravity, as you said to astronauts”. Even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Hawking had “made the world a better place”.

Although we’ve lost a wonderful mind and beautiful person today, he’ll live on in his work, and will be remembered generations from now. Farewell Stephen Hawking, for we’ll never have someone like you ever again.