 "Stephen Hawking")
Stephen Hawking was in his early 20s when he learnt that he was afflicted by a cruel disease — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — that would gradually reduce him to paralysis and probably lead to his early death. He faced that bleak prospect with an extraordinary combination of courage, determination and humour. As he once said, "It matters that you don't give up".
By the time he passed away on Wednesday, the 76-year-old had radically altered the way physicists viewed the universe and he had also inspired generations of disabled people. Hawking was the quintessential public intellectual, instantly recognisable in his
