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Professor Stephen Hawking at Cambridge in 2013.

Stephen Hawking at the Centre of Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge in 2013.Credit: Tom Pilston/Panos

Stephen Hawking, one of the most influential physicists of the twentieth century and perhaps the most celebrated icon of contemporary science, has died at the age of 76.

The University of Cambridge confirmed that the physicist died in the early hours of 14 March at his home in Cambridge, England.

Since his early twenties, Hawking had lived with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a disease in which motor neurons die, leaving the brain incapable of controlling muscles. Hawking’s health had been reportedly deteriorating; just over a year ago, he was hospitalized during a trip to Rome.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02957-4