My hero is an outstanding in every way person, whos mind has travelled futher than any known spacecraft, beyond distances we can imagine... I think his mind has travelled to the furthest corner of our universe even though his body has been deprived of the ability to travel freely even to another country. Some of you might have already guessed who I'm talking about. Of course that's Stephen Hawking - the maestro of theoretical physics and cosmology himself.
I think that everybody knows his story of how a young very promising scientist's life got threatened by a terrible disease and even though he's been told he would only last a couple of years, he's still here and alive and even though his body is motionless, his mind is as active as ever! He's my hero, because he never stopped, he never stops at what he has already achieved in whatever he does. He keeps fighting the disease, he's got amazing children, when his career in university was jeopardised he proved he's capable of things almost no other man was capable of and achived recognition all around the world, he did not only learn how to use speech synthesiser efficiently, he actually conducts lectures using it and he even wrote a book and not only one, but many! Speaking of his books - they were the door to my understanding the laws and principles of the universe and how it works. I always struggled to get great marks at physics back at school and by the end of it I grew to hate physics, but Hawking's books gave me such love, such curiosity for whatever happens out there and made me wonder (I can actully lie under the night sky gazing at the stars for hours thinking about the theories and imagining what's going on out there and wondering and asking questions) what was at the beginning and will there be an end and many many more. I also admire his ability to admit that he was wrong and come up with newer theories contradicting his previous ones and it's a huge honor to be able to witness the work of such a great mind!
I know that many people think he's overrated and "mainstream", that's he's not a scientist and more of a "showman", "popular scientist" etc. Well, I have to disagree! If he's the first one to try showing average people of how gorgeous the universe and it's laws are doesn't mean there's no "true", "serious" scientific work going on. I just feel really sad that's he's getting old, but he's already done so much and I'm glad he has followers and I hope there will be more, I really hope his ideas would be developed after he's gone and I really hope there will be someone who would keep sharing it with the mass of all of us who can only wonder gazing at the night sky full of stars so gorgeous, so mysterious and so very far away.
@missy , @rambo , @lyxzen