President Kovind paid condolences to Hawking

New Delhi, Mar 14: The President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday expressed grief over the death of eminent British theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking who died at the age of 76.

"Sad to hear of the passing of scientist Stephen Hawking. His brilliant mind made our world and our universe a less mysterious place. And his courage and resilience will remain an inspiration for generations," President Kovind wrote on Twitter.

A family spokesperson of Professor Hawking on Wednesday announced his death earlier on Wednesday.

Professor Hawking's children in a statement described him as a great scientist and an extraordinary man, whose work and legacy will live on for many years.

In 1963, Professor Hawking contracted a motor neuron disease that gradually paralyzed him over the decades. He was still able to communicate using a single cheek muscle attached to a speech-generating device.

He was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, a fundamental theory in physics which describes nature at the smallest scales of energy levels of atoms and subatomic particles.