Hawking's death triggers emotional goodbyes, tributes in China

FILE PHOTO: Stephen Hawking in Beijing June 21, 2006. REUTERS/Alfred Cheng Jin/File Photo

BEIJING (Reuters) - The death of British physicist Stephen Hawking unleashed a flood of tearful goodbyes on Chinese social media while state television and newspapers paid tribute to the man who had featured in many a school essay in China over the years.

Hawking, who died in England on Wednesday, was the top trending topic on China's Twitter-like microblog Weibo at one point, with ordinary people and celebrities alike bidding farewell to the author of "A Brief History of Time".