Number 1 - Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking was born on the 8^th January 1942, three hundred years to the day that another great scientist, Galileo, had died. Widely regarded as the greatest mind in physics since Albert Einstein, Hawking has not only managed to succeed in advancing the understanding of the Universe, but has also succeeded in publishing books which popularise a type of science once thought to be impossible for ‘ordinary people’ to understand. That he has achieved all this while being almost entirely paralysed for nearly forty years makes his story all the more remarkable.

Hawking grew up just outside London before, at the age of 17, winning a scholarship to Oxford University. After graduating in 1962, he moved to Cambridge University where he pursued a PhD in cosmology, the study of the Universe. However, while he had rapidly become a rising star of the Physics community, Hawking was about to be given some terrible news; the problems with coordination that he had begun to experience while studying at Oxford had become worse at Cambridge and doctors diagnosed him with Neuro-Muscular Dystrophy, a medical condition where the cells that control muscle movement begin to die and cause paralysis. The doctors were pessimistic; a 21 year old Stephen Hawking was told that he could expect to live no more than three years.

But Hawking refused to give in to the disease and returned immediately to his studies, where he met Jane Wilde who he would later marry. And, even though his symptoms were worsening, he gained a Fellowship at the University of Cambridge and, in 1974, was named as one of the youngest ever fellows of the Royal Society. He received the Albert Einstein Award, the most prestigious in theoretical physics. And in 1979, he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the same post held by Sir Isaac Newton 300 years earlier.

Almost entirely paralysed, Hawking was only able to communicate through slurred speech with people who knew him well until 1985 when, after having caught pneumonia, he had an operation that meant he would never speak again. However, an American computer expert who heard about his plight wrote a computer program that allowed him to select words from a menu, using head or eye movement, and which synthesised speech.

Using this system, in 1988 Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, explaining his thinking about the cosmos for a general audience. It became a best-seller and sold millions around the world, establishing his reputation as an accessible genius.

Still hard working to this day, Stephen Hawking has currently outlived the doctor’s estimates on his life expectancy by thirty seven years, has been married twice and has three children and a grandchild. But, he is still motivated to continue his life’s work.

"My goal is simple. It is complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."