Science

Stephen Hawking

Diagnosed with ALS at 21 and given two years; held Newton's chair for three decades.

Born: 1942 · Oxford, England
Roots: English
Family: Middle class; Academic household — tropical-medicine researcher father; educated but frugal.
Education: Oxford (physics) → Cambridge (PhD, cosmology)
Started with: Scholarship; Entered Oxford at 17 on a scholarship.
Affiliations & societies: Royal SocietyDocumented; Elected a fellow in 1974, among the youngest at the time.; Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1959 · age 17
Oxford at 17
1963 · age 21
ALS diagnosis
Given roughly two years to live; lives another 55.
1966 · age 24
Cambridge PhD
On expanding universes and singularities.
1974 · age 32
Hawking radiation
Shows black holes emit radiation; elected to the Royal Society the same year.
1979 · age 37
Lucasian Professor
The Cambridge mathematics chair once held by Newton.
1985 · age 43
Loses his voice
After a tracheotomy; speaks through a synthesizer from then on.
1988 · age 46
A Brief History of Time
Sells more than 10 million copies.
2018 · age 76
Dies
Ashes interred in Westminster Abbey between Newton and Darwin.

Sources

Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.