Famed British physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking passes way at age 76, said a family spokesman on Wednesday.
“We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today,” professor Hawking’s children, Lucy, Robert, and Tim said in a statement carried by Britain’s Press Association news agency.
His children Lucy, Robert and Tim were deeply saddened by their father’s demise.
“He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humour inspired people across the world,” they said.
In 1963, when Hawking was a 21-year-old student at Cambridge University, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neurone disease or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe,” Hawking once remarked, “and for that, I am extremely grateful.”