The theories of British physicist and mathematician Stephen William Hawking (born 1942) placed him in the great tradition of Newton and Einstein. Hawking made fundamental contributions to the science of cosmology--the study of the origins, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe.

Stephen W. Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford, England. His father, a well-known researcher in tropical medicine, urged his son to seek a career in the sciences. Stephen found biology and medicine too descriptive and lacking in exactness. Therefore, he turned to the study of mathematics and physics.

Hawking was not an outstanding student at St. Alban's School, Hertfordshire, nor later at Oxford University, which he entered in 1959. He was a sociable young man who did little schoolwork because he was able to grasp the essentials of a mathematics or physics problem quickly and intuitively. While at Oxford he became increasingly interested in relativity theory and...