One of the world's greatest scientists and finest minds, Professor Stephen Hawking, has died at the age of 76.
The physicist and author of A Brief History of Time died peacefully at his home in Cambridge early on Wednesday afternoon (NZT).
In a statement, Professor Hawking's children, Lucy, Robert and Tim said: "We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today.
"He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years.
"His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humour inspired people across the world.
"He once said, 'It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.' We will miss him forever."
The Telegraph previously wrote of how, in 1962, when Stephen Hawking turned 21, he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, which doctors said would probably kill him within a few years.
Soon afterwards, he went to Cambridge to start a PhD in cosmology. The next two years were the most difficult of his life as he struggled to find a suitable doctorate subject while the crippling disease took hold.
But, as Hawking's body shut down, his mind began to expand new theories about black holes that would change our understanding of the cosmos.
The best-known theoretical physicist of his time, Professor Hawking wrote so lucidly of the mysteries of space, time and black holes that his book, A Brief History of Time, became an international bestseller, making him one of science's biggest celebrities since Albert Einstein.
In May last year, Hawking warned that humans should leave earth within 100 years if we wanted to survive.
He believed that life on Earth was at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as asteroid strikes, epidemics, over-population and climate change.
As our world became less suitable for life over the next century, Professor Hawking would warn in a documentary that future generations must forge a new existence in space.
As part of the documentary Professor Hawking planned to travel around the world to find out how we might exist in outer space.
Auckland University head of the department of physics Richard Easther said he had met Hawking for lunch a couple of times and had met him at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.
"In that sense he is a normal person, except he is not, he's Hawking."
Conversing with Hawking was an interesting experience, often Easther and other physicists would be talking shop and Hawking would chime in on something that had been said a minute or so ago, "ping-ponging" the conversation back.
"I knew him as a colleague. He was brilliant and was one of the top scientists in the 20th Century."
His primary contributions were understanding the connections between thermosdynamics, black holes and quantum mechanics, Easther said.
Source: nzherald.co.nz
