Stephen William Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was a legendary English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. Widely regarded as one of the greatest scientific minds in modern history, he served as the prestigious Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009. Despite being diagnosed with a progressive motor neuron disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS) at the age of 21 and given just two years to live, Hawking defied the odds for over five decades to reshape our understanding of the universe