图文简介斯蒂芬·威廉·霍金(Stephen Hawking) - January 07, 2013

Born in Oxford, England, in 1942, Hawking studied at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He became a math professor at Cambridge and held that post for more than 30 years.  In 2009, he left to head the Cambridge University Center for Theoretical Physics.

Hawking has spent his life working on big, bold ideas, according to David Devorkin, historian and curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington.  
Hawking’s work has focused on bridging the gap between Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity -which explains how the pull of gravity controls the motion of large objects like planets- and the theory of quantum physics, which deals with the behavior of particles on the subatomic scale.

Speaking at a 2008 ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the U.S. space agency, NASA, Hawking called for a new era in human space exploration, comparable, he said, to the European voyages to the New World more than 500 years ago.

“Spreading out into space will have an even greater effect," Hawking said. "It will completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have any future at all.”

Hawking also posed some fundamental questions.

“What will we find when we go into space?" he asked. "Is there alien life out there, or are we alone in the universe?”

Questions inspired by an indomitable mind, and Stephen Hawking's neverending quest to solve the mysteries of the universe.