The loss of Stephen Hawking

It's fitting to quote the British newspaper, The Guardian, on the death of one of its most revered citizens, Stephen Hawking, about whom they wrote:

"Stephen Hawking was a brilliant, complex man and scientist.  Diagnosed at 21 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, he had been expected to live a few more years.  Hawking last another 55.   He made his name as a young Cambridge cosmologist with breakthroughs as awesome as anything religion offers:  proving that big bang theory must hold true and elucidating the link between gravity and quantum mechanics.  From his wheelchair, Hawking's mind roamed the multiverses.  It was his 1988 bestseller A Brief History of Time, about the advances in cosmology, that made him a pop icon.  It kindled Hawking's showmanship:  when asked what his book was about, he replied 'the mind of God.' . . . "