Stephen Hawking remembered by his Indian student in unique way
"Physically bound to the wheelchair, Stephen Hawking reached out into the depths of the universe with his mind and decoded the mysterious cosmos for the common people" - that is how an Indian Astrophysicist Somak Raychaudhury remembered his teacher, Hawking. Director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Pune, Raychaudhury said, "When you think about human spirit, you think about Stephen Hawking."
Hawking was a brain in a bottle: Raychaudhury
"The man in the street knows Hawking's name, not because of his research on blackholes, they know him because he was a brain in a bottle," said Somak Raychaudhury. "He could hardly move, and yet in spite of being given two years to live at the age of 20, he lived till 76 and tackled head on every obstacle in life," he added.
"Hawking is special because he is larger than life"
"He (Hawking) was my teacher and I knew him from a time when he could speak. Personally, it's a huge loss. Hawking is special because he is larger than life," said Raychaudhury. He also said, if you think about human spirit, you think about Stephen Hawking. "In spite of his affliction, he carried on popularizing science through his books and lectures," added Raychaudhury.
Stephen Hawking passed away at 76
The famous physicist Stephen Hawking passed away today at the age of 76. He was diagnosed with a rare form of motor neuron disease in 1963 when he was 21. The illness left him in a wheelchair and largely unable to speak except through a voice synthesizer. He was completely dependent on others or on technology for everything.
His book 'A Brief History of Time' gave him stardom
Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time" was what brought his science to the common people and rocketed Hawking to stardom. Published for the first time in 1988, the title made the Guinness Book of Records after it stayed on the Sunday Times bestsellers list for an unprecedented 237 weeks. It sold 10 million copies and was translated into 40 different languages.
I attended the lectures of record breaking book: Raychaudhury
"I attended the set of lectures that became record breaking book 'A Brief History of Time'. It was given in a set of public lectures during my first year," said Raychaudhury. "Even at the time, listening to those lectures every week one knew that this was something happening. He was explaining basics of cosmology in a way people hadn't done before," he said.
