Remembering Stephen Hawking on his 4th death anniversary

Context

British physicist Stephen Hawking passed away on 14 March, in the year 2018.

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Contribution of Stephen Hawking to the scientific world:

Remembering him on his death anniversary, here are a few ground-breaking discoveries that can be attributed to the phenomenal scientist and inspiring human being.

Proving Black Holes:
He was the first person to ever provide mathematical proof for the existence of black holes.
They had been a theory before Hawking’s validation.
The Hawking Radiation:
His prediction that black holes emit radiation was found true and named after him.
Thanks to these predictions, we now know black holes can vary in size in accordance to the radiation of energy.
Hawking Area Theorem:
This was a team effort with Brandon Carter and James Bardeen. Together, they discovered the laws of the mechanics of black holes.
The first of these was named after Hawking, which says the black hole never gets smaller in terms of total surface area.
Formation of Black Holes:
Apart from discovering their existence, Hawking also postulated how they were formed.
As a star dies, its entire mass collapses into infinite density at a single point (or singularity) which in turn forms a black hole.
The Theory of Time:
His theories regarding time are quite interesting.
One of the many time-related theories he offered was that before the Big Bang explosion (widely accepted as the event leading to the birth of our current universe) time was basically non-existent.
This means questions regarding “what existed or happen before” this event is essentially meaningless.

About Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS):

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.
Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body.
The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death.
When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost.
With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.