Hawking was
born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England, to Frank (1905–1986) and Isobel
Hawking (née Walker; 1915–2013). His
mother was Scottish. Despite
their families' financial constraints, both parents attended the University of Oxford,
where Frank studied medicine and
Isobel, Philosophy, Politics and
Economics. The two met shortly after the beginning of the Second World War at
a medical research institute where she was working as a secretary and he as a medical researcher. They lived in Highgate, but as London was being bombed in
those years, Isobel went to Oxford to give
birth in greater safety. Hawking
has two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward.
In 1950,
when his father became head of the division of parasitology at
the National
Institute for Medical Research, Hawking and his family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire. In
St Albans, the family were considered highly intelligent and somewhat
eccentric; meals were often spent
with each person silently reading a book. They lived a frugal existence in a
large, cluttered, and poorly maintained house, and travelled in a converted
London taxicab. During one of
Hawking's father's frequent absences working in Africa, the rest of the family spent four
months in Majorca visiting
his mother's friend Beryl and her husband, the poet Robert Graves.
Hawking
began his schooling at the Byron House School; he later blamed its
"progressive methods" for his failure to learn to read while at the
school. In St Albans, the
eight-year-old Hawking attended St Albans High School for Girls for a few months; at that time,
younger boys could attend one of the houses.
He attended
Radlett School for a year and from September 1952, St Albans School. The family placed a high value on
education. Hawking's father wanted his son to attend the well-regarded Westminster School, but
the 13-year-old Hawking was ill on the day of the scholarship examination. His
family could not afford the school fees without the financial aid of a
scholarship, so Hawking remained at St Albans. A positive consequence was that
Hawking remained with a close group of friends with whom he enjoyed board
games, the manufacture of fireworks, model aeroplanes and boats, and long
discussions about Christianity and extrasensory perception. From 1958, and with the help of the
mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta, they built a computer from clock parts, an old
telephone switchboard and other recycled components. Although at school he was known as
"Einstein", Hawking was not initially successful academically.
Hawking
began his university education at University College, Oxford in October 1959 at the age of 17. For the first 18 months, he was bored
and lonely: he was younger than many other students, and found the academic
work "ridiculously easy". His
physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said, "It was only necessary for him
to know that something could be done, and he could do it without looking to see
how other people did it." A change occurred during his second and third
year when, according to Berman, Hawking made more effort "to be one of the
boys". He developed into a popular, lively and witty college member,
interested in classical music and science fiction.
Hawking
was concerned that he was viewed as a lazy and difficult student, so when asked
at the oral to describe his future plans, he said, "If you award me a First,
I will go to Cambridge. If I receive a Second, I shall stay in Oxford, so I
expect you will give me a First." He
was held in higher regard than he believed: as Berman commented, the examiners
"were intelligent enough to realise they were talking to someone far
cleverer than most of themselves". After
receiving a first-class BA (Hons.) degree, and following a trip to Iran with a friend, he began his
graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in October 1962.
When
Hawking began his graduate studies, there was much debate in the physics
community about the prevailing theories of the creation of the universe: the Big Bang and theSteady State theories. Inspired by Roger Penrose's theorem of a spacetime singularity in the centre of black holes, Hawking applied the same
thinking to the entire universe, and during 1965 wrote his thesis on this
topic.
Hawking has
a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neurone
disease or Lou Gehrig's disease, that has
gradually paralysed him over the decades.
Hawking had
experienced increasing clumsiness during his final year at Oxford, including a
fall on some stairs and difficulties when rowing. The problems worsened, and
his speech became slightly slurred; his family noticed the changes when he returned home
for Christmas and medical investigations were begun. The diagnosis of motor neurone disease came when Hawking was 21, in 1963. At
the time, doctors gave him a life expectancy of two years.
When Hawking
was a graduate student at Cambridge, his relationship with Jane Wilde, a friend of his sister, whom he had met shortly
before his diagnosis with motor neurone disease, continued to develop. The
couple became engaged in October 1964— Hawking later said that the engagement
gave him "something to live for" — and
the two were married on 14 July 1965.
During their
first years of marriage, Jane lived in London during the week as she completed
her degree, and they travelled to the United States several times for
conferences and physics-related visits. The couple had difficulty finding
housing that was within Hawking's walking distance to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics(DAMTP). Jane began a PhD
programme, and a son, Robert, was born in May 1967. A daughter, Lucy, was born in 1970. A third child, Timothy, was born in
April 1979.
In the
late 1980s, Hawking had grown close to one of his nurses, Elaine Mason, to the
dismay of some colleagues, caregivers and family members, who were disturbed by
her strength of personality and protectiveness. Hawking told Jane that he was leaving
her for Masonand departed the family home in February 1990. After his divorce from Jane in 1995, Hawking married
Mason in September, declaring
"It's wonderful — I have married the woman I love."
In
2006, Hawking and Mason quietly divorced, and
Hawking resumed closer relationships with Jane, his children, and
grandchildren. Reflecting this
happier period, a revised version of Jane's book called Travelling to Infinity: My Life
with Stephen appeared in
2007, and was made into a film, The Theory of
Everything, in 2014.
In his
work, and in collaboration with Penrose, Hawking extended the singularity
theorem concepts first explored in his doctoral thesis. This included not only
the existence of singularities but also the theory that the universe might have
started as a singularity. Their joint essay was the runner-up in the 1968 Gravity Research
Foundation competition. In 1970 they
published a proof that if the universe obeys the general theory of
relativity and fits any of the models of physical cosmology developed by Alexander Friedmann, then it must have begun as a
singularity. In 1969, Hawking accepted a specially created Fellowship for
Distinction in Science to remain at Caius.
In
1970, Hawking postulated what became known as the second law
of black hole dynamics,that the event horizon of a black hole can never get
smaller. With James M. Bardeen and Brandon Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole
mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics
Beginning
in 1973, Hawking moved into the study of quantum gravity and quantum mechanics. His
work in this area was spurred by a visit to Moscow and discussions with Yakov Borisovich
Zel'dovich and Alexei Starobinsky, whose work showed that
according to the uncertainty principle, rotating black holes emit
particles.
In
1975, he was awarded both the Eddington Medal and the Pius XI Gold
Medal, and in 1976 the Dannie
Heineman Prize, the Maxwell Prize and the Hughes Medal Hawking was appointed a professor with a chair in gravitational physics in 1977.The following year he
received the Albert Einstein Medal and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford
Hawking continued his writings for a popular audience, publishing The Universe in a Nutshell in 2001, and A Briefer History of Time which he wrote in 2005 with Leonard Mlodinow to update his earlier works to make them
accessible to a wider audience, and God Created the Integers,
which appeared in 2006. In 2007 Hawking and his daughter Lucy published George's Secret
Key to the Universe, a children's book designed to explain theoretical
physics in an accessible fashion and featuring characters similar to those in
the Hawking family. The book was followed by sequels in 2009 and 2011.
In 2002,
following a UK-wide vote, the BBC included Hawking in their list of the 100 Greatest Britons. He
was awarded the Copley Medal
from the Royal Society (2006), the Presidential Medal of Freedom which is America's highest civilian
honour (2009), and the RussianSpecial Fundamental Physics Prize (2013)
On 20
July 2015, Hawking helped launch Breakthrough
Initiatives, an effort to search for extraterrestrial life and attempt to answer the question: Are we alone?
She subsequently
overcame her disability with the help of a prosthetic 'Jaipur foot'.
She returned to dancing after a gap of two years and performed in Europe,
Canada and the Middle East. Her biography is part of curriculum for school
children in the age group of 8-11. 
Chandran started her career
with a Telugu film Mayuri,
which was based on her own life. The film was later dubbed in Tamil and
Malayalam. It was also remade in Hindi as Naache
Maayuri, where Chandran again played herself and co-starred with Shekhar Suman, Aruna Irani and Dina Pathak.
She was awarded the 1986 Special Jury Award at the National Film Awards for her performance in Mayuri.
