January 8: Stephen Hawking's birthday, Galileo dies in Italy

Notable scientific events take place on January 8 in history.

January 8, 1942: Anniversary of the birth of physicist Stephen W. Hawking

Stephen W. Hawking is a famous scientist and theoretical physicist with lots of research on quantum physics and astronomical universe. Hawking was born on January 8, 1942, in Oxford, England, exactly 300 years after Galileo's death. In October 1959, Hawking entered the University of Oxford when he was 17 years old. In the first 18 months he was bored and lonely: he was younger than most students, and found learning "oddly easy".

When Hawking was 21 years old, people diagnosed him with motor neuron disease and then doctors assumed he only lived for another 2 years. The weakness of the disease continued, and in 2005 he began to control the device of cheek muscle movement by not being able to use his hand anymore. This put Hawking at risk of complete paralysis, so he is working with researchers on systems that can translate brain images into signals that can be communicated.

Hawking once affirmed that he "was not religious in the ordinary sense" and that he believed "the universe is operated by scientific laws". Those laws may be proclaimed by God, but God does not intervene to break them. He also stated: "Nobody created the universe and no one intended our destiny. This led me to a profound realization that there must be no paradise nor the afterlife."

January 8, 1642: Galileo Galilei dies at the age of 77

Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist, mathematician and philosopher, who played an important role in the scientific revolution. According to Stephen Hawking, Galileo was the most influential person for the birth of modern science more than anyone else, Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science.

By observing the stars through a telescope, Galileo was the first person to discover the Earth orbiting the Sun, not in the central position like what people believed at the time. However his heliocentric theory was later rejected by the Church and considered to be against the Bible. He was then jailed and his works were banned from publication as well as propaganda.

Galileo died on January 8, 1642 at the age of 77. However, the ban on reprinting Galileo's works was not removed until 1718. And in 1758 his general ban with heliocentric support works was removed.

January 8, 1998: Scientists discover Nicotine addictive

In 1998, scientists announced the first time to detect the effects of nicotine on the brain and make it addictive. Scientists have discovered that nicotine is involved in the release of dopamine, a chemical that plays a role between nerves in the brain. It is a very powerful neurotoxin with a marked effect on insects; So in the past nicotine was widely used as a pesticide.