Graduate years

Hawking's first year as a doctoral student[1] was difficult. He was initially disappointed to find
that he had been assigned Dennis William Sciama, one of the founders of modern
cosmology, as a supervisor rather than noted astronomer Fred Hoyle,[64][65] and he found his
training in mathematics inadequate for work in general relativity and cosmology.[66]After being
diagnosed with motor neurone disease, Hawking fell into a depression; though his doctors
advised that he continue with his studies, he felt there was little point.[67]However, his disease
progressed more slowly than doctors had predicted. Although Hawking had difficulty walking
unsupported and his speech was almost unintelligible, an initial diagnosis that he had only
two years to live proved unfounded. With the encouragement of Sciama, he returned to his
work.[68][69] Hawking started developing a reputation for brilliance and brashness when he
publicly challenged the work of Fred Hoyle and his student Jayant Narlikar at a lecture in
June 1964.[70][71]
When Hawking began his graduate studies, there was much debate in the physics
community about the prevailing theories of the creation of the universe: the Big Bang and
the Steady State theories.[72] Inspired by Roger Penrose's theorem of a spacetime singularity
in the centre of black holes, Hawking applied the same thinking to the entire universe; and,
during 1965, he wrote his thesis on this topic.[73] There were other positive developments:
Hawking received a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius College.[74] He obtained
his PhD degree in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general
relativity and cosmology, in March 1966,[75] and his essay entitled "Singularities and the
Geometry of Space-Time" shared top honours with one by Penrose to win that year's
prestigious Adams Prize.[76][75]

Career
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19661975
In his work, and in collaboration with Penrose, Hawking extended the singularity theorem
concepts first explored in his doctoral thesis. This included not only the existence of
singularities but also the theory that the universe might have started as a singularity. Their
joint essay was the runner-up in the 1968 Gravity Research Foundation competition.[77][78] In
1970 they published a proof that if the universe obeys the general theory of relativity and fits
any of the models of physical cosmology developed by Alexander Friedmann, then it must
have begun as a singularity.[79][80][81] In 1969, Hawking accepted a specially created
Fellowship for Distinction in Science to remain at Caius.[82]
In 1970, Hawking postulated what became known as the second law of black hole dynamics,
that the event horizon of a black hole can never get smaller.[83] With James M.
Bardeen and Brandon Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing
an analogy with thermodynamics.[84] To Hawking's irritation, Jacob Bekenstein, a graduate
student of John Wheeler, went furtherand ultimately correctlyto apply thermodynamic
concepts literally.[85][86] In the early 1970s, Hawking's work with Carter, Werner Israel and
David C. Robinson strongly supported Wheeler's no-hair theorem that no matter what the
original material from which a black hole is created, it can be completely described by the
properties of mass, electrical charge and rotation.[87][88] His essay titled "Black Holes" won
the Gravity Research Foundation Award in January 1971.[89] Hawking's first book, The Large
Scale Structure of Space-Time, written with George Ellis, was published in 1973.[90]