Stephen Hawking, the British physicist whose scientific achievements, decades-long battle with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and best-selling book “A Brief History of Time” helped make him the most celebrated scientist since Albert Einstein, has died, his family told the Associated Press. He was 76.

Considered by many to be the world's greatest living scientist, Hawking was also a cosmologist, astronomer, mathematician and author of numerous books including the landmark “A Brief History of Time,” which has sold more than 10 million copies.

His most important work – which brought together quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and the general theory of relativity – marked a startling extension of Einstein’s greatest discovery, relativity.

With fellow physicist Roger Penrose, Hawking merged Einstein's theory of relativity with quantum theory to suggest that space and time would begin with the Big Bang and end in black holes. Hawking also discovered that black holes were not completely black but emit radiation and would likely eventually evaporate and disappear.

 

 

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