The world has lost one of its leading lights following the death of Stephen Hawking at the age of 76.



The world-famous physicist was told he had just two years to live at the age of 21 when he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) which confined him to a wheelchair and left him unable to speak except through a voice synthesiser.



And whilst Stephen managed to live much, much longer than his medically advised life expectancy, he finally lost his battle with his illness during the early hours of Wednesday morning.



The scientist was best known for his work on black holes and relativity, and wrote several ground-breaking and popular science books including 'A Brief History of Time', which explained the mysteries of the universe in basic terms and sold over 10 million copies worldwide.



RIP Stephen, you will be missed.