Stephen Hawking, physicist who reshaped cosmology, dies at 76

FILE PHOTO: British physicist Stephen Hawking answers questions during an interview in Orlando, Florida April 25, 2007. REUTERS/Charles W Luzier/File Photo

Stephen Hawking, the British physicist and black-hole theorist who brought science to a mass audience with the best-selling book A Brief History of Time, has died. He was 76. 

Hawking died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in England in the early hours of Wednesday morning, a spokesman for his family said in an emailed statement.