Fly
May 10th, 2007 by 
Bradley Denton
Two weeks ago, on April 26, 2007, Professor Stephen Hawking was taken aloft on a Zero Gravity Corporation flight. During that flight, he experienced total weightlessness eight times.
Except for Albert Einstein, Professor Hawking is probably the most famous and influential theoretical physicist of the past century. His fame rests almost wholly, and justifiably, upon his work . . . but because of that fame, it’s also well known that he suffers from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and has been almost completely without motor neuron control for forty years.
ALS is a rotten deal for anyone it strikes. But Professor Hawking was lucky in one regard: When he was first diagnosed, in 1963, his physicians predicted he had less than three years to live. But he proved them wrong – and now, in 2007, he can look back at four decades in which he has not only broken new ground in physics, but has written bestselling popular science books and become an international celebrity.
And he’s guest-starred on The Simpsons.
Even Einstein didn’t get to do that!
Posted in Brad, Medicine, People, Pop. Culture, Science, Technology | 
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