BBC News

Stephen Hawking: A life in pictures

Published
image captionStephen Hawking, who was born in 1942, studied physics in Oxford and later went on to Cambridge for his postgraduate research in cosmology.
image source, AFP
image captionAt the age of 22, he was diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease. As he was preparing to marry his first wife Jane (pictured), doctors predicted he did not have long to live. They were married for 26 years and went on to have three children together.
image source, PA
image captionHe used a wheelchair and was largely unable to speak except through a voice synthesiser. Hawking shot to fame with his 1988 book A Brief History of Time, which sold over 10 million copies.
image captionThe physicist appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1992 with Sue Lawley. His chosen luxury was crème brûlée
image source, Reuters
image captionHawking later went on to marry one of his nurses, Elaine Mason, in 1995. They were married for 11 years before they divorced.
image captionIn 2004, Benedict Cumberbatch became the first actor to portray the physicist on screen. The BBC TV film, Hawking, was critically acclaimed.
image source, EPA
image captionThe world-famous physicist often delivered lectures at universities around the world, like this one he gave at the George Washington University in 2008.
image source, AFP/Getty
image captionHawking met many famous world figures, including Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg in 2008
image source, Getty Images
image captionHe won many awards in the fields of mathematics and science and in 2009, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-US President Barack Obama.
image source, Reuters
image captionHe also went on to meet Queen Elizabeth in 2014 during a charity event at St James' Palace.
image source, Getty Images
image captionHis life story was made into a 2014 film, The Theory of Everything, starring Eddie Redmayne who is pictured here with Hawking.
image source, AFP
image captionIn 2017, Hawking spoke to an audience in Hong Kong by hologram, beamed live from his office in Cambridge. After his death, his children said his legacy would "live on for many years".

Related Topics

More on this story