Stephen Hawking passed away at the age of 76

The Albert Einstein Institute mourns the British astrophysicist

Last night, Professor Stephen W. Hawking passed away in Cambridge, England. The physicist, who was confined to a wheelchair since his early 20s, did ground-breaking research in general relativity, cosmology and black holes. Hawking held the prestigious Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University from 1979 to 2009.

Hawking's work inspires and informs much of the research work at the AEI. "We mourn our friend and colleague, and our thoughts are with his family and friends," said the directors of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics.

Cambridge University has published an obituary for Stephen Hawking.