Stephen Hawking, a legendry theoretical physicist who made significant contributions in various fields including cosmology, would have turned 78 had he been alive today. Stephen Hawking died on March 14 in 2018 after a prolonged illness called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) that left him paralyzed for decades. On his death anniversary, LatestLY lists pathbreaking theories of Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking: 10 Amazing Facts About the Genius Physicist You Probably Didn't Know.

  • One of Stephen Hawking's greatest accomplishments was giving mathematical proofs that black holes do exist. Prior to Hawking’s mathematical proof, black holes existed only in theory.

  • Hawking presented theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. He proved that the size of black holes changes as they radiate energy.

  • Hawking, along with Brandon Carter and James Bardeen, discovered the laws of black hole mechanics. The first law, which is also known as Hawking area theorem, states that the total surface area of the black hole will never get smaller.

  • Another theory of Hawking says when a star dies, all of its mass collapses into a single point of infinite density (singularity) which leads to the formation of a black hole.

  • One of Stephen Hawking's theories states that time did not exist before the Big Bang explosion. Thus, the question that what happened before the Big Bang becomes meaningless.

  • In 2006, Hawking came up with a theory which states that the universe consisted of a superposition of many initial conditions rather than one unique initial state.

Besides discoveries and theories, Stephen Hawking is also known for his science books in which he explained complicated concepts of quantum physics like black holes, Hawking radiation and singularity in a language that a common man can also understand. Published in 1988, Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time' remained on the Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 14, 2020 08:15 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).