{"id":65817,"date":"2018-03-14T08:25:27","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T12:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/visionary-physicist-stephen-hawking-dead-at-76\/"},"modified":"2018-03-14T08:25:27","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T12:25:27","slug":"visionary-physicist-stephen-hawking-dead-at-76","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gayfriendschat.com\/socialblog\/visionary-physicist-stephen-hawking-dead-at-76\/","title":{"rendered":"Visionary Physicist Stephen Hawking Dead at 76"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visionary Physicist Stephen Hawking Dead at 76<\/b>
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Stephen Hawking at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge by Lwp Kommunik\u00e1ci\u00f3<\/a> (CC-BY-2.0<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Stephen Hawking, the visionary physicist who wrote A Brief History of Time and dedicated his life to exploring and explaining the mysteries of the universe, has died at 76.<\/p>\n

CNN reports<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Hawking suffered from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), a neurodegenerative disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig\u2019s Disease, which is usually fatal within a few years. He was diagnosed in 1963, when he was 21, and doctors initially only gave him a few years to live<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The disease left Hawking wheelchair-bound and paralyzed. He was able to move only a few fingers on one hand and was completely dependent on others or on technology for virtually everything \u2014 bathing, dressing, eating, even speech.<\/p>\n

Hawking used a speech synthesizer that allowed him to speak in a computerized voice with an American accent.<\/p>\n

WIRED adds<\/a>:<\/p>\n

He and the physicist Roger Penrose described\u00a0singularities<\/a>, mind-bending physical concepts where relativity and quantum mechanics collapse inward on each other\u2014as at the heart of a black hole. It\u2019s the sort of place that no human will ever see first-hand; the event horizon of a black hole smears matter across time and space like cosmic paste. But Hawking\u2019s mind was singular enough to see it, or at least imagine it.<\/p>\n

His calculations helped show that as the young universe expanded and grew through inflation, fluctuations at the quantum scale\u2014the smallest possible gradation of matter\u2014became the galaxies we see around us. No human will ever visit another galaxy, and the quantum realm barely waves at us in our technology, but Hawking envisioned them both. And he calculated that black holes could sometimes explode, an image that would vex even the\u00a0best visual effects wizard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

RIP to a true genius.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The post Visionary Physicist Stephen Hawking Dead at 76<\/a> appeared first on Towleroad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Visionary Physicist Stephen Hawking Dead at 76<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n