BBC Radio 5 live

Listeners have been telling 5 live presenter Anna Foster about the tributes they would like to see to Professor Stephen Hawking.

Darren said: “Having part of The Science Museum called 'The Stephen Hawking Area' where it's an interactive and learning permanent exhibit. Making learning of the universe an easy thing to learn and understand. It's better than a statue.”

Terry in Inverness said: "His ashes to be sent out to space to be among the stars and galaxies he knew so well. He always wanted to take a trip through a black hole and I hope he gets his wish. Remarkable man. RIP."

Other suggestions included having Prof Hawking on the new £20 note, using his voice for the speaking clock, and having a statue of him placed in Greenwich, London.

Our science correspondent Pallab Ghosh remembers his many interviews with the great physicist - the first was perhaps the most memorable.

"I first went to interview Prof Hawking in 1997 at his office in Cambridge.

"I felt a mixture of awe and excitement as I waited for the man who for years had been my idol.

"He seemed to smile at me as he entered the room which immediately put me at my ease.

"The camera operator I was with wanted to make a last minute adjustment to his lighting and so he asked Prof Hawking's staff if he could pull out one of the plugs in the office so that he could use the socket for his equipment.

"Without waiting for a response, he pulled the plug and the room was filled with a deafening siren.

"Prof Hawking then slouched forward and I feared that my colleague had inadvertently unplugged a vital piece of life-support equipment.

"Fortunately, it was the alarm to the uninterruptable power supply to his office computer and he was slouched forward with mirth at our incompetence."

Read more here.

Image source, Nasa

Our colleagues on the science desk have been helping to explain Professor Hawking's most significant discoveries, in the briefest way possible:

• With the Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose, he showed that if there was a Big Bang, it must have started from an infinitely small point – a singularity
• Black holes radiate energy known as Hawking radiation, while gradually losing mass. This is due to quantum effects near the edge of the black hole, a region called the event horizon
• He predicted the existence of mini-black holes at the time of the Big Bang. These black holes would have shed mass until they vanished, potentially ending their lives in an explosion that would release vast amounts of energy
• In the 1970s, Prof Hawking considered whether the particles and light that enter a black hole were ultimately destroyed if the black hole evaporated. Prof Hawking initially thought that this “information” was lost from the universe. But the US physicist Leonard Susskind disagreed. These ideas became known as the information paradox. In 2004, Prof Hawking conceded that the information must be conserved.

Prof Hawking's A Brief History of Time has rocketed to the top of Amazon's best sellers list this morning, according to the web retailer., external

Image source, PA

Image source, Getty Images

Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Prof Hawking in a 2004 BBC TV film about his life at Cambridge University, said he felt "so lucky" to have known "such a truly great man", adding: "I will miss our margaritas but will raise one to the stars to celebrate your life".

"He virtually created the publishing genre of popular science," Cumberbatch said.

"A heroic feat to bring the wondrous complexities of the universe to all outside of specialists in this field.

"But truly courageous when considering it was achieved by a man who lived a life trapped in his body from the age of 21 when he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

"His support of the sciences, art, education and the NHS and charities such as the MND foundation will also live on as will his wickedly funny sense of humour."

He added: "You were and are a true inspiration for me and for millions around the world. Thank you."

US chatshow host Larry King probed Prof Hawking on the great mysteries of the universe.

Patricia Keegan Friedman has sent us this photo of her with Professor Hawking from her time at Cambridge University between 2004 and 2008.

“After a dinner my friend Emily and I asked Prof Hawking for a photo," she recalls.

"We explained we were both physicists and loved his lectures.

"We waited awkwardly while he compiled a response, thinking he was probably going to say sorry, it's late, maybe another time.

"This photo was taken straight after he gave his response: 'If you give me a kiss'."

Image source, Patricia Keegan Friedman

BBC Radio 5 live

5 live listener Matthew in Wolverhampton wrote to Stephen Hawking in 1990.

Matthew was serving in the army, when he and his friend had a question:

"If you've got two cars, travelling at the speed of light, and the car at the back turns its headlights on, would the light reach the car in front?"

Matthew said it wouldn't - his friend said it would.

He wrote to Stephen Hawking - and this was the reply:

Matthew said "ever since then, when I've run the London Marathon, I've run it for motor neurone disease as a thank you."

Our colleagues in Delhi have been gathering some thoughts from those who met Professor Hawking - and worked with him.

Somak Raychaudhuri, director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, recalls attending Prof Hawking's public lectures called A short history of time in his first term as a PhD student in Cambridge.

"More than 500 people attended these weekly lectures. You had to get there an hour before the start to get a seat," he says.

"I still have my notes from those lectures - a printed copy was also circulated. Very few people knew Hawking's name then outside a tight circle of physicists and cosmologists and Cambridge academics."Those lectures turned into a book, with a slightly different title, which made Stephen Hawking a household name."

Indian astrophysicist Jayant Naralikar, who developed with Sir Fred Hoyle the conformal gravity theory, known as the Hoyle–Naralikar theory, studied with Stephen Hawking at Cambridge University, where he was his junior by a year or two.

"When we were in college he didn’t really stand out at the beginning, but it didn’t take too long before we realised his potential."

He recalls giving a lecture at a science conference in England in 1961, where he met Stephen - then an Oxford University student - for the first time.

"I noticed one student asking many questions - and that was Stephen Hawking," he says.

"He asked many questions about concepts like cosmology, expansion of the universe and the big bang theory.

"When I tried to answer his questions, I realised he had an immense curiosity about the universe.

"We played a table tennis match at the conference - and I defeated him."

In 1992, Prof Hawking made an appearance on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs with Sue Lawley.

As well as selecting the eight records he would choose to take to the mythical island, the physicist revealed that his favourite book was Middlemarch by George Eliot, his favourite track was Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his luxury item would be a crème brûlée.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn tweeted his tribute to Prof Hawking, who was a Labour supporter but said last year he regarded Corbyn as a "disaster".

Corbyn said: "Stephen Hawking inspired the world with his determination to explain the mysteries of the cosmos.

"But he also showed breathtaking courage to overcome life's adversities and a burning passion to protect our National Health Service. He will be greatly missed."

Meanwhile, Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Prof Hawking "changed the way we see the universe".

Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, called him "one of the most inspirational people throughout my life".

BBC Radio 5 live

Listeners to BBC Radio 5 live have been reacting to the news on Your Call.

Ian in Somerset said he was quite choked up when he heard the news. He said Hawking was "like Elvis to the disabled world" - and such an inspiration throughout his life. "Every barrier he met he found a way around it to do what he loved". Ian said he has very little eyesight left and his philosophy has been: "If Stephen Hawking can do it, then so can I".

Jeff said he was 14 when he watched Stephen Hawking on Wogan. He went out and bought A Brief History of Time and "it really inspired me..it drove me on to do a PhD in astrophysics". He said: "I remember being at Cambridge and I saw Stephen Hawking for the first time and I couldn't believe he was there. I just sat down and stared at him across the room, I couldn't believe I was in the same room as this guy".

And Simon wrote on 5 live's Facebook page: "Physics is seen by many as uninteresting and “nerdy” but Stephen more than most other scientists has made physics mainstream. Having had the opportunity to meet him on a number of occasions he has inspired me to continue to challenge the way we see the world and to continually try to understand things better and ultimately evolve and improve. He also had a tremendous sense of humour... A truly remarkable man."

You can listen back to a special edition of Your Call here.

Stephen Hawking was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1974 at the exceptionally young age of 32.

Two years later, he received the Hughes Medal for his distinguished contributions to the application of general relativity to astrophysics, especially to the behaviour of highly condensed matter.

And in 2006 he was awarded the society’s oldest and most prestigious award, the Copley Medal, for his outstanding contribution to theoretical physics and theoretical cosmology.

Its president, Venki Ramakrishnan, says his life is "a testament to the power of human creativity and imagination" and he had an exceptional ability to "connect with and inspire the public the world over".

Today's Twitter tributes are testament to the wide reach of Professor Hawking. With his huge intellect, razor-sharp wit and great showmanship, he was admired by artists as much as scientists. Here, the star of the Big Sick, Kumail Nanjiani, Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas and nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow pay tribute.

According to the Royal Albert Hall in London, Prof Hawking was the second ever physicist to sell out the venue with a lecture he gave in 1995.

The first? That was Albert Einstein many years earlier in 1933.

American singer Cher has added her voice to the tributes pouring in for Prof Hawking.

In a tweet, she revealed she met him for lunch and they discussed history and time travel.

We've been digging around to find out more about that wheelchair dancing.

At one Gonville and Caius College celebration called Bishop Shaxton’s Solace, dinner was traditionally followed by dancing to music from a small orchestra.

During one event in the 1980s, Professor Pedley recalls: “Stephen got his new wheelchair on the dancefloor, and somebody said ‘Can you do a waltz?’

"He put it on 'go and turn' and he went whizzing around in circles - he enjoyed that.

"So his sense of humour was not just a donnish, academic one - it was a sense of the absurd.”

Prof Hawking was a regular fixture on the BBC but his first appearance for the corporation came some 40 years ago.