In 2007 Hawking and his daughter Lucy published George's Secret Key to the Universe, a

children's book designed to explain theoretical physics in an accessible fashion and

featuring characters similar to those in the Hawking family.[188] The book was followed by
sequels in 2009 and 2011.[189]
In 2002, following a UK-wide vote, the BBC included Hawking in their list of the 100 Greatest
Britons.[190] He was awarded the Copley Medal from the Royal
Society (2006),[191] the Presidential Medal of Freedom which is America's highest civilian
honour (2009),[192] and the Russian Special Fundamental Physics Prize (2013).[193]
Several buildings have been named after him, including the Stephen W. Hawking Science
Museum in San Salvador, El Salvador,[194] the Stephen Hawking Building in
Cambridge,[195] and the Stephen Hawking Centre at Perimeter Institute in
Canada.[196] Appropriately, given Hawking's association with time, he unveiled the
mechanical "Chronophage" (or time-eating) Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College
Cambridge in September 2008.[197][198]
During his career Hawking has supervised 39 successful PhD students.[199] As required by
Cambridge University regulations, Hawking retired as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in
2009. Despite suggestions that he might leave the United Kingdom as a protest against
public funding cuts to basic scientific research,[200] Hawking has continued to work as director
of research at the Cambridge University Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical
Physics, and indicated in 2012 that he had no plans to retire.[201]
On June 28, 2009, as a tongue-in-cheek test of his 1992 conjecture that travel into the past
is effectively impossible, Hawking held a party open to all, complete with hors d'oeuvres and
iced champagne, but only publicized the party after it was over so that only time-travellers
would know to attend; as expected, nobody showed up to the party.[202]
On 20 July 2015, Hawking helped launch Breakthrough Initiatives, an effort to search
for extraterrestrial life