Stephen Hawking helped elevate Canada’s science profile
TORONTO — Scientists, educators and leaders across the country are paying tribute to Stephen Hawking, celebrating a man whose connections to Canada helped elevate the global profiles of national research institutes.
Hawking, who died Wednesday at age 76, was known as one of the greatest scientific minds of his generation, celebrated for his theories on black holes and the nature of time and for his defiance of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS — a degenerative disease of the nervous system that cost him his voice and most of his physical mobility.
Hawking boosted Canada’s profile in the physics community in 2008 when he took on the title of distinguished research chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ont., which he visited in 2010 and 2012.
“Stephen’s life was heroic, in so many ways,” said Neil Turok, director of the institute and a friend of Hawking’s who worked with him at Cambridge University.