In October 1962, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where, in March 1966, he obtained his PhD in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology.

Hawking was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

[37][38] During one of Hawking's father's frequent absences working in Africa,[39] the rest of the family spent four months in Mallorca visiting his mother's friend Beryl and her husband, the poet Robert Graves.

[45][46] A positive consequence was that Hawking remained close to a group of friends with whom he enjoyed board games, the manufacture of fireworks, model aeroplanes and boats,[47] and long discussions about Christianity and extrasensory perception.

[65] After receiving a first-class BA degree in physics and completing a trip to Iran with a friend, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in October 1962.

[78] Inspired by Roger Penrose's theorem of a spacetime singularity in the centre of black holes, Hawking applied the same thinking to the entire universe; and, during 1965, he wrote his thesis on this topic.

[81] There were other positive developments: Hawking received a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge;[82] he obtained his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology, in March 1966;[83] and his essay "Singularities and the Geometry of Space–Time" shared top honours with one by Penrose to win that year's prestigious Adams Prize.

[85][86] In 1970, they published a proof that if the universe obeys the general theory of relativity and fits any of the models of physical cosmology developed by Alexander Friedmann, then it must have begun as a singularity.

[93][94] In the early 1970s, Hawking's work with Carter, Werner Israel, and David C. Robinson strongly supported Wheeler's no-hair theorem, one that states that no matter what the original material from which a black hole is created, it can be completely described by the properties of mass, electrical charge and rotation.

This information paradox violates the fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics, and led to years of debate, including "the Black Hole War" with Leonard Susskind and Gerard 't Hooft.

[141][142][143] These awards did not significantly change Hawking's financial status, and motivated by the need to finance his children's education and home-expenses, he decided in 1982 to write a popular book about the universe that would be accessible to the general public.

[163][164] Hawking pursued his work in physics: in 1993 he co-edited a book on Euclidean quantum gravity with Gary Gibbons and published a collected edition of his own articles on black holes and the Big Bang.

The documentary A Brief History of Time, directed by Errol Morris and produced by Steven Spielberg, premiered in 1991; the film contains material from the book as well as interviews with Hawking, his friends, family and colleagues.

[276] For his communication, Hawking initially raised his eyebrows to choose letters on a spelling card,[277] but in 1986 he received a computer program called the "Equalizer" from Walter Woltosz, CEO of Words Plus, who had developed an earlier version of the software to help his mother-in-law, who also had ALS and had lost her ability to speak and write.

[287] With this decline there was a risk of him developing locked-in syndrome, so Hawking collaborated with Intel Corporation researchers on systems that could translate his brain patterns or facial expressions into switch activations.

[296] In September 2013, he expressed support for the legalisation of assisted suicide for the terminally ill.[297] In August 2014, Hawking accepted the Ice Bucket Challenge to promote ALS/MND awareness and raise contributions for research.

[334] His final words to the world appeared posthumously, in April 2018, in the form of a Smithsonian TV Channel documentary entitled, Leaving Earth: Or How to Colonize a Planet.

"[355] Hawking expressed concern that life on Earth is at risk from a sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, global warming, an asteroid collision, or other dangers humans have not yet thought of.

[367][368] In an interview published in The Guardian, Hawking regarded "the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail", and the concept of an afterlife as a "fairy story for people afraid of the dark".

[305][365] In 2011, narrating the first episode of the American television series Curiosity on the Discovery Channel, Hawking declared: We are each free to believe what we want and it is my view that the simplest explanation is there is no God.

[372][373] He recorded a tribute for the 2000 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore,[374] called the 2003 invasion of Iraq a "war crime",[373][375] campaigned for nuclear disarmament,[372][373] and supported stem cell research,[373][376] universal health care,[377] and action to prevent climate change.

[378] In August 2014, Hawking was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.

[379] Hawking believed a United Kingdom withdrawal from the European Union (Brexit) would damage the UK's contribution to science as modern research needs international collaboration, and that free movement of people in Europe encourages the spread of ideas.

"[384] Hawking blamed the Conservatives for cutting funding to the NHS, weakening it by privatisation, lowering staff morale through holding pay back and reducing social care.

By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.

[392] At the release party for the home video version of the A Brief History of Time, Leonard Nimoy, who had played Spock on Star Trek, learned that Hawking was interested in appearing on the show.

[408] Broadcast in March 2018 just a week or two before his death, Hawking was the voice of The Book Mark II on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, and he was the guest of Neil deGrasse Tyson on StarTalk.

15, Wagner's Die Walküre, Act 1, The Beatles's "Please Please Me", Mozart's Requiem, Puccini's "O Principe, che a lunghe carovane" and Edith Piaf's "Non, je ne regrette rien" ("That just about sums up my life.")

[415] Hawking received the 2015 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Basic Sciences shared with Viatcheslav Mukhanov for discovering that the galaxies were formed from quantum fluctuations in the early Universe.

The fellowship is awarded annually to an individual who has made an exceptional contribution to the STEM fields and social discourse,[417] with a particular focus on impacts affecting the younger generations.