Deteriorating condition: Stephen Hawking delivering a lecture about the imperative to explore space in April 2008, at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Credit: AFP/NASA
LONDON: British astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, the author of A Brief History Of Time, is "very ill" in hospital, Cambridge University said Monday.
Hawking, 67, is famous for his research, books and work on television documentaries, despite suffering from a form of motor neurone disease that left him paralysed and dependent on a voice synthesiser to communicate.
"Professor Hawking is very ill," said a spokesman for the university, adding that the academic had been taken to a local hospital by ambulance. "He is undergoing tests. He is in a comfortable condition and will spend the night in hospital."
Chest infection
Other reports suggest he has been ill with a chest infection for some weeks. Arizona State University, in the U.S., said that Hawking had cancelled a planned appearance on 5 April, because he was recovering from the infection and doctors had advised him not to fly.
Hawking has been Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, a position once held by Isaac Newton, since 1979.
His stated goal is nothing less than "a complete understanding of the universe", and his work has focused on trying to unify existing theories of the large-scale universe (relativity) and the small-scale universe (quantum theory).
In 1974 he published a seminal paper theorising the radical ideas that black holes can emit particles in the form of 'Hawking radiation', which might lead to the eventual 'evaporation' of a black hole.
Lou Gehrig's disease
Hawking became an international celebrity through his best-selling 1988 book on cosmology, A Brief History Of Time, which examines complex concepts like the Big Bang and black holes in an accessible manner.
It was followed in 2001 by another book, The Universe In A Nutshell, as well as documentaries and even cameo appearances in television shows such as The Simpsons and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
He received a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire), from the Queen in 1982, as well as a string of honorary degrees.
Hawking suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, leaving him first wheelchair-bound and now almost completely paralysed.
He was diagnosed with the condition aged 22 and was not expected to survive into his 30s. But he defied expectations to build a hugely successful academic career.
