Huge inspiration with a sense of humor as vast as the universe : Tributes pour in for Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking, who died, aged 76 on Wednesday, the same day as Albert Einstein's birthday, also known as "Pi day." . Stephen Hawking was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology . Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford . He lived in Highgate but, as London was being bombed in those years, Isobel went to Oxford to give birth in greater safety. Hawking had two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward . In 1950, when Hawking's father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research, Hawking and his family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire . 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'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 . Hawking was awarded a scholarship after taking the examinations in March 1959 . 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 and many more .