Biography | Stephen Hawking — The Slate Set Between Newton and Darwin

People look for Hawking's last chapter in a Cambridge street.

The public stone is here, in the nave of Westminster Abbey, between Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.

He died at home in Cambridge on 14 March 2018. He was seventy-six.

A private funeral was held at Great St Mary's in Cambridge on 31 March.

The Abbey service was on 15 June 2018. His ashes were interred during it, in Scientists' Corner.

Jane Hawking and two of the children, Lucy and Tim, laid flowers. Lord Rees, the Astronomer Royal, gave the address.

Benedict Cumberbatch read from Wisdom. Major Tim Peake read Shelley.

The Dean of Westminster decides who is buried here. Newton was laid in the Abbey eight days after he died.

Darwin was accepted in 1882 on a similar short notice. Hawking joined them on the same floor.

The Caithness slate was designed by John Maine. Gillian Forbes cut the letters.

The stone measures 99.5 by 85.5 centimetres. The dark colour was chosen to read as deep space.

The English line is a translation of the Latin on Newton's stone: HERE LIES WHAT WAS MORTAL OF STEPHEN HAWKING 1942-2018.

Incised above the rings is the equation for the entropy of a black hole, the relation that made the 1974 radiation result inevitable.

A box in the grave held a silver medallion from the Stephen Hawking Foundation. One face shows a sketch of the radiation.

The reverse records the interment date.

About a thousand people sat the service. Twenty-seven thousand had applied.

The Abbey opened free afterwards so the queue could pass the slab.

Stand quiet. Do not photograph other mourners.

The stone is a floor you walk on, not a plinth.

Photo: Westminster Abbey west front, via Wikimedia Commons. Portrait: NASA StarChild, public domain