Stephen Hawking

Dr. Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA, (born January 8, 1942) is a  British theoretical physicist who has devoted much of his life to probing the spacetime described by general relativity and the singularities where it breaks down. And he’s done most of this work while confined to a wheelchair, brought on by the progressive neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a post once held by Isaac Newton.

In the late 1960s, Hawking proved that a singularity must have occurred at the birth of the universe. In 1974 he first recognized a truly remarkable property of black holes, objects from which nothing was supposed to be able to escape. By taking into account quantum mechanics, he was able to show that black holes can radiate energy as particles are created in their vicinity. He also wrote the international bestseller A Brief History of Time. The book spent more than four years on the London Sunday Times bestseller list—the longest run for any book in history.

Character Information
A hero of Sheldon, Leonard, Raj, and Howard, Stephen Hawking has been mentioned in the episodes Pilot, The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis, and The Agreement Dissection. He will appear in the Aril 5, 2012 episode, following the guest appearance of Leonard Nimoy (Stephen Hawking to 'Big Bang Theory').