Stephen Hawking

Biography Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January In Oxford, England. Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology, there being no-one working in that area in Oxford at the time. After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973 Stephen came to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and since 1979 has held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.

Biography Professor Hawking has twelve honorary degrees, was awarded the CBE in 1982, and was made a Companion of Honors in He works at Cambridge University in England as a physics professor. He is a quantum cosmologist - a person who studies the universe at a time when it was so small that atoms had not yet formed. Hawking is best known for his work involving the exploration into the nature of black holes quantum cosmologistblack holes Hawking would have been remarkable for just his cutting edge work in theoretical physics. However, he has managed to strike people's interests in science in a way other scientists of his stature have not been able to do. His best selling book, A Brief History of Time offered a new way to look at things. He sold millions of copies to audiences eager to learn even some of what Stephan Hawking has to offer.

Disability Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. Stephen Hawking is unable to move or speak* because of a disease called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Also, most ALS sufferers die within five years of being diagnosed, while Hawking has survived over three decades with it. 5% of the cases are hereditary. ALS kills nerve cells in the upper spinal cord, and therefore they cannot carry signals from the brain to the muscles of the body. ALS is an incurable disease

Disability As motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement. Early symptoms of ALS often include increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing or breathing When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.

Assistive device Stephen uses a program called Equalizer written by a company called Word Plus. It uses a cursor across part of the screen. It is written by a company called words plus. He uses a voice synthesizer made by Speech +. Writes paper using program called tex.