Stephen Hawking was a renowned British theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author. He was born in 1942 in Oxford, England and went on to study at both the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. Hawking made groundbreaking contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity. He authored several popular science books explaining his work, with one titled "A Brief History of Time" spending over 250 weeks on bestseller lists. Hawking overcame amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and was almost entirely paralyzed but continued his scientific work using a speech generating device. He died in 2018 at his home in Cambridge at the age of 76.