Former President Obama shared a photo of him with Stephen Hawking to honor the world-renowned physicist and author who died at age 76.
“Have fun out there among the stars,” Obama tweeted Wednesday.
A spokesperson for Hawking’s family confirmed to multiple news outlets early Wednesday that the physicist and author had died.
Hawking, an Oxford-born physicist, was behind groundbreaking discoveries about black holes and general relativity and was regarded one of the most prominent intellectuals of his era.
In 1963, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), which eventually paralyzed him. He was still able to communicate using a computer that generated speech.
In recent years, he was an outspoken critic of President Trump, calling him out for his rhetoric on the campaign trail and for his environmental policies.