Hawking Defies Gravity
Since reading A Brief History of Time and hearing countless anecdotes from and about Stephen Hawking, I am without doubt a fan. Last Thursday, the famed astrophysicist fulfilled a dream of floating weightless, something he hopes will lead to further adventures in space.
A modified jet flew to 32,000 feet and made a parabolic dive back down to 24,000 feet, allowing Hawking to experience weightlessness for about 25 seconds. Hawking, a maths professor at Cambridge University, whose work on black holes and the origins of the universe is truly groundbreaking, has been wheelchair-bound with ALS for over four decades (apart from 25 wonderful seconds on Thursday!)
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