To understand black holes and cosmology requires one to develop a theory of quantum gravity. Quantum gravity is an unfinished project which is attempting to unify general relativity, the theory of gravitation and of space and time with the ideas of quantum mechanics. Hawking’s work on black holes started a new chapter in this quest and most of his subsequent achievements centred on these ideas. Hawking recognised that quantum mechanical effects in the very early universe might provide the primordial gravitational seeds around which galaxies and other large-scale structures could later form. This theory of inflationary fluctuations,developed along with others in the early 1980’s, is now supported by strong experimental evidence from the COBE, WMAP and Planck satellite observations of the cosmic microwave sky. Another influential idea was Hawking’s ‘no boundary’ proposal which resulted from the application of quantum mechanics to the entire universe. This idea allows one to explain the creation of the universe in a way that is compatible with laws of physics as we currently understand them.

　　Professor Hawking’s influential books included The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime, with G F R Ellis; General Relativity: an Einstein centenary survey, with W Israel; Superspace and Supergravity, with M Rocek (1981); The Very Early Universe, with G Gibbons and S Siklos, and 300 Years of Gravitation, with W Israel.

　　However, it was his popular science books which took Professor Hawking beyond the academic world and made him a household name. The first of these, A Brief History of Time, was published in 1988 and became a surprise bestseller, remaining on the Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Later popular books included Black Holes and Baby Universes, The Universe in a Nutshell, A Briefer History of Time, and My Brief History. He also collaborated with his daughter Lucy on a series of books for children about a character named George who has adventures in space.

　　In 2014, a film of his life, The Theory of Everything, was released. Based on the book by his first wife Jane, the film follows the story of their life together, from first meeting in Cambridge in 1964, with his subsequent academic successes and his increasing disability. The film was met with worldwide acclaim and Eddie Redmayne, who played Stephen Hawking, won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 2015 ceremony.