Stephen Hawkins

  
 
Stephen Hawkins

Stephen Hawking, world-renowned physicist and author of the novel A Brief History of Time, was born precisely 300 years after the death of Galileo, on the 8th of January 1942. His parents' house was in north London, but Hawking was born in Oxford as his parents were worried about the dangers of the Blitz. When he was eight, his family moved to St. Albans, a town about 20 miles north of London. When he was older, Hawking attended his father's alma mater, University College at Oxford. Though his father wanted him to study medicine, Hawking opted for physics (his preferred subject, mathematics, was not offered). After three years, during which his intellect allowed him to put in comparitively little effort, he was awarded a first class honours degree in Natural Science.

After recieving his degree, Hawking at first attempted to continue his studies at Oxford, however he quickly grew bored of astronomy, and since at the time Oxford was not pursuing research into Cosmolo...