The prestigious British physicist Stephen Hawking died on Wednesday at age 76, according to a spokesman for his family.
Born on January 8 in the United Kingdom, he was considered one of the most influential scientists since Albert Einstein
not only for his discoveries and theories in fields such as black holes or relativity
but also for the circumstances of his personal life
When he was 21 years old, Hawking began to notice that his movements were increasingly clumsy
and was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a motor neuron disease
The doctors gave him a maximum of two years of life
He defied all the predictions although the disease was slowly paralyzing him
leaving him with movement only in two fingers and some facial muscles
However, this did not prevent him from continuing to work on his theories and disseminating them through books and public events
The scientist used a voice synthesizer to communicate and a wheelchair controlled by the movement of head and eyes
Hawking devoted his whole life to studying the laws that govern the Universe
One of his most daring statements was to consider that the General Theory of Relativity formulated by Einstein
implied that space and time had a beginning in the Big Bang and that they have their end in black holes
In 2004 he thwarted his own theory and concluded that black holes do not absorb everything
Hawking played a definitive role in the diffusion of cosmology in terms easy to understand for the general public
His book "A Brief History of Time," written in 1988, sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
The British physicist tried by all means to get people closer to the mysteries of the Universe.
Stephen Hawking 1942-2018
