Two Scientists Died Last Week
Stephen Hawking: Visionary physicist dies aged 76. He was born on 8 January 1942, 300 years to the day of Galileo Galilei’s death and died on 14 March 2018, 139 years to the day of Albert Einstein’s birth. For the core of his professional life he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, a position earlier held by Sir Isaac Newton. He belonged in their company.
A major achievement of Professor Hawking was his book A Brief History of Time, a book everyone with any interest in space or time should read. It was written for non-specialists to explain what the Big Bang Theory and other basic precepts of physics are all about. After reading the book you can appreciate his work on discovering the way the universe operates.
Louise Slaughter, microbiologist and one of six scientists in the House of Representatives, died at age 88. Louise represented the 25th District of New York, which is the city of Rochester and most of Monroe County. She has been in Congress for over 30 years and was intending to run again this year. She would have been reelected because she made it a point to actually represent the people in her district.
She was on the county commission when I lived in Rochester, and then ran for the state assembly. She did a lot of good which is why she kept getting elected in a Republican leaning area.
