INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD (Faculty of Management Sciences) Creative Thinking and Reasoning

Stephen William Hawking

Submitted to: Mr. Farrukh Ali Shah Submitted by: Fahad Ashraf Reg No. : 4334-FMS/MBA/F09

MBA 22(4)-B
Wednesday, March 16, 2011

STEPHEN WILLIAM HAWKING

It is a saying that, A person is not disable if he has any physical disability; he is disable only if he cannot think. The perfect example of this quotation is Stephen William Hawking. He is great Physicist and a Mathematician. His theories and researches are considered to be most authentic one. Hawking can a source of inspiration for many of his kind and other mildly physically disabled individuals. Stephen Hawking is severely disabled by a motor neurone disease known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Hawking's illness is markedly different from typical ALS in that his form of ALS would make for the most protracted case ever documented. A survival for more than ten years after diagnosis is uncommon for ALS; the longest documented durations, other than Hawking's, are thirty-two and thirty-nine years and these cases were termed benign because of the lack of the typical progressive course.

Distinctions
Hawking's belief that the lay person should have access to his work led him to write a series of popular science books in addition to his academic work. The first of these, A Brief History of Time, was published on 1 April 1988 by Hawking, his family and friends, and some leading physicists. It surprisingly became a best-seller and was followed by The Universe in a Nutshell (2001). Both books have remained highly popular all over the world. A collection of essays titled Black Holes and Baby Universes (1993) was also popular. His book, A Briefer History of Time (2005), co-written by Leonard Mlodinow, aims to update his earlier works and make them accessible to an even wider audience. He and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, have recently published a children's book focusing on science that has been described to be "like Harry Potter, but without the magic." This book is called George's Secret Key to the Universe and includes information on Hawking radiation. Hawking is also known for his wit; he is famous for his oft-made statement, "When I hear of Schrdinger's cat, I reach for my pistol." This was a deliberately ironic paraphrase of "Whenever I hear the word culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning", from the play Schlageter (Act 1, Scene 1) by German playwright and Nazi Poet Laureate Hanns Johst. His wit has both entertained the non-specialist public and helped them to understand complex

questions. Asked in October 2005 on the British daytime chat show Richard & Judy, to explain his assertion that the question "What came before the Big Bang?" was meaningless, he compared it to asking "What lies north of the North Pole?" Hawking has generally avoided talking about politics at length, but he has appeared on a political broadcast for the United Kingdom's Labor Party. He supports the children's charity SOS Children's Villages UK. On 19 December 2007, a statue of Hawking by renowned late artist Ian Walters was unveiled at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, University of Cambridge. In May 2008, the statue of Hawking was unveiled at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cape Town. The Stephen W. Hawking Science Museum in San Salvador, El Salvador is named in honor of Stephen Hawking, citing his scientific distinction and perseverance in dealing with adversity. Stephen Hawking Building in Cambridge opened on 17 April 2007. The building belongs to Gonville and Caius College and is used as an undergraduate accommodation and conference facility.

Research Fields:
Hawking conducted his research in following three fields: Applied Mathematics. Theoretical Physics. Cosmology.

Human spaceflight:
At the fiftieth anniversary of NASA in 2008, Hawking gave a keynote speech on the final frontier exhorting and inspiring the space technology community on why we (the human race) explore space. Hawking was quoted before the flight saying: Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight. I am doing it for many reasons. First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space.

Awards and honors:

1975 Eddington Medal. 1976 Hughes Medal of the Royal Society. 1979 Albert Einstein Medal. 1981 Franklin Medal. 1982 Order of the British Empire (Commander). 1985 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 1986 Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics. 1989 Prince of Asturias Awards in Concord. 1989 Companion of Honor. 1999 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society. 2003 Michelson Morley Award of Case Western Reserve University. 2006 Copley Medal of the Royal Society. 2008 Fonseca Price of the University of Santiago de Compostela. 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.