I don't even know what to say about this right now. I can't think of anyone who was more influential in my life. It goes without saying that he was an inspirational figure. But a lot of people don't know just how important he really was as a scientist.
We know that black holes have singularities because of Hawking. We know that there has to have been a big bang because of Hawking. The majority of the research done in fundamental physics for the last thirty years has been an attempt to fully understand just one of his discoveries (Hawking radiation). There has been no more important scientific mind in the last fifty years.
He started to have trouble balancing in his mid twenties. He didn't expect to survive to the end of grad school. Now he's gone at 76. Not bad, but we could have used more of him.
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