World renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has
died at the age of 76.
The British scientist was famed for his work
with black holes and relativity, and wrote
several popular science books including "A
Brief History of Time".
At the age of 22 Stephen Hawking was given
only a few years to live after being diagnosed
with a rare form of motor neurone disease.
The illness left him in a wheelchair and largely
unable to speak except through a voice synthesiser.
Stephen Hawking was the first to set out a
theory of cosmology as a union of relativity
and quantum mechanics.
He also discovered that black holes leak energy
and fade to nothing - a phenomenon that would
later become known as Hawking radiation.
The scientist gained popularity outside the
academic world and appeared in several TV
shows.
