In 1973, he became a fellow of King’s College and Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge, and served for ten years as director of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy.

After studying at the University of Cambridge, he held post-doctoral positions in the UK and the USA. Martin Rees, born in 1942, is a Fellow of Trinity College and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge he also holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal. He is the author of numerous academic publications, while his books include A Brief History of Time (1988, Folio 2015, 2021), the essay collection Black Holes and Baby Universes (1995), The Universe in a Nutshell (2001), A Briefer History of Time (2005), The Grand Design (2010) and the memoir My Brief History (2013), along with a series of children’s books co-authored with his daughter, Lucy. He held 12 honorary degrees and was awarded the CBE in 1982. Professor Hawking was Director of Research at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) and Founder of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology (CTC) at the University of Cambridge. From 1979 to 2009 he held the post of Lucasian Professor at Cambridge, the chair held by Isaac Newton in 1663. In his early twenties he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease or Motor Neurone Disease in the UK. Stephen Hawking, born in 1942, was educated at St Albans School and University College, Oxford, where he was awarded a first class honours degree in Natural Science before pursuing his graduate studies in Cosmology at Cambridge.

A brief history of time illustrated