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| Stephen Hawking dies aged 76 | Stephen Hawking dies aged 76 |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| World renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76. | |
| He died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in the early hours of Wednesday, his family said. | |
| The Briton was known for his work with black holes and relativity, and wrote several popular science books including A Brief History of Time. | |
| At the age of 22 Prof Hawking was given only a few years to live after being diagnosed with a rare form of motor neurone disease. | |
| The illness left him wheelchair-bound and largely unable to speak except through a voice synthesiser. | The illness left him wheelchair-bound and largely unable to speak except through a voice synthesiser. |
| In a statement his children, Lucy, Robert and Tim, said: "We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today. | |
| "He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years." | |
| They praised his "courage and persistence" and said his "brilliance and humour" inspired people across the world. | They praised his "courage and persistence" and said his "brilliance and humour" inspired people across the world. |
| "He once said, 'It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.' We will miss him forever." | "He once said, 'It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.' We will miss him forever." |
| Prof Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology as a union of relativity and quantum mechanics. | |
| He also discovered that black holes leak energy and fade to nothing - a phenomenon that would later become known as Hawking radiation. | |
| Factfile: Stephen Hawking | Factfile: Stephen Hawking |
| The scientist gained popularity outside the academic world and appeared in several TV shows including The Simpsons, Red Dwarf and The Big Bang Theory. | |
| He was portrayed in both TV and film - recently by Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything, which charted his rise to fame and relationship with his first wife, Jane. |