Stephen Hawking Success Story

One of the greatest scientists living on the planet today, Stephen Hawking needs no introduction. With science geeks and the non-scientific population of the world, he is equally popular, widely known and often compared to scientists like Einstein and Galileo. A theoretical cosmologist and physicist, Stephen Hawking is the director of research at the Centre For Theoretical Cosmology in the University of Cambridge today.

Hawking is most popular for his theories in the field of cosmology, in which he uses Einstein’s relativity theory and quantum mechanics. His book, A brief history of Time in which he explains his cosmology theories in a very simple manner understandable by the layman had been the bestseller for a really long time of 237 weeks. This book was what made him more reachable to the non-scientific masses along with the fact that he makes constant guest appearances on popular TV shows such as The Simpsons and Star Trek.

Childhood

Stephen Hawking was born to the also-highly-educated Frank and Isobel Hawking both of who went to Oxford. His father Frank specialized in Medicine and Isobel, in Philosophy and Economics. Stephen, who was one among four of kids of the Hawking couple was surprisingly not very good at academics as he was at learning things in general. Although teachers often dismissed him off for his poor performance in academics, they knew that there was a hidden genius in him, which is probably why he was nicknamed ‘Einstein’ while in school.

Career

He was expected to take on the same path as his father in medicinal research but did not find biology interesting as he thought it was ‘too inexact’. Instead, he studied physics at University of Oxford and later, Astronomy and Cosmology at the Trinity Hall, Cambridge. During his days in Cambridge, Hawking was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) which would progress as he grew older. Today, he still communicates effectively despite the disease using a system known as the equalizer. Although he can only communicate with about 15 words per a minute because of his disease, he’s authored books, given lectures and written a lot of scientific papers.