His ALS, with which he was diagnosed at the age of 21, left him with severely limited mobility, making an automated voice box his only means of communication. Hawking, who died Wednesday at the age of 76, was an unlikely figure to become a beloved pop cultural touchstone. For all his theories about the cosmos, Stephen Hawking may be remembered as much for his assessment of Homer Simpson’s “donut-shaped universe” as his groundbreaking work on the nature of time and existence of parallel dimensions – and that’s just one of Hawking’s many contributions to a surprisingly robust comedic legacy.
