His passing has left an intellectual vacuum in his wake: Twitter pays homage to Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking, the physicist, whose studies in cosmology have been considered legendary, has died aged 76.

Hawking's formidable mind probed the very limits of human understanding both in the vastness of space and in the bizarre sub-molecular world of quantum theory, which he said could predict what happens at the beginning and end of time. His work ranged from the origins of the universe itself, through the tantalising prospect of time travel to the mysteries of space's all-consuming black holes.

Let’s take a quick look at how Twitter has reacted to his death: