Stephen Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death.He has come to be thought of as the greatest mind in physics since Albert Einstein.
Hawking grew up outside London.His father was a doctor；his mother was active in politics.He was not a smart schoolboy，but knew from early on that he would study science.He became good at mathematics and in 1958 he and some friends built a simple computer that actually worked.In 1959 he won a scholarship to Oxford University.In 1962 he got his degree with honors and went to Cambridge University to get a PhD in cosmology.There he became interested in black holes.After receiving his PhD, he stayed at Cambridge，becoming known even in his middle 20s for his pioneering ideas.
In 1968 he studied in the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge.He published the very technical book，The Large Scale Structure of SpaceTime and afterwards made a great discovery.It had always been thought that nothing could escape a black hole.He continued working on the theory of the origin of the universe.
At the age of 32, he was named a fellow of the Royal Society; at the same year he received the Albert Einstein Award.Five years later, in 1979, he was appointed Top Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, which was held by Sir Isaac Newton 300 years earlier.
In 1988 Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time, which became a bestseller.He wrote other popular articles and appeared in movies and television.He remains extremely busy, and his work hardly slowed by the disease that affects muscle control, for which he uses a wheelchair and speaks through a speech computer.He said，“My goal is simple.It is complete understanding of the universe，why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”
