Stephen Hawking was 21 when he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease — and was told he had about two years to live. Over the ensuing 55 years, working from a wheelchair as the ALS progressed, Hawking became the most famous man of science since Albert Einstein, wrote a perennial best-seller called “A Brief History of Time,” and was ranked 25th on a 2002 poll compiling the 100 Greatest Britons, ahead of Charles Dickens, David Bowie, and Sir Thomas More.
