Stephen William Hawking was a British theoretical physicist and astrophysicist. He held the prestigious Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University from 1979 to 2009. Stephen Hawking provided significant work on cosmology, general relativity, and black holes.

In 1963, Hawking was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). As part of the underlying disease (consecutive progressive bulbar paralysis) and treatment for severe pneumonia, he lost the ability to speak in 1985. For verbal communication he used a speech computer since then.

Through his popular science books on modern physics and extensive media coverage, he became known to a wide audience outside the scientific community.