Cambridge U. Calls ‘Time’ on Stephen Hawking

The theoretical physicist Stephen W. Hawking stepped down today from his position as Cambridge University’s Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a seat once occupied by Sir Isaac Newton, the Daily Mail reports. Once told that he would not live past 23 because of his paralyzing motor-neuron disease, Mr. Hawking is now 67, the mandatory retirement age for the prestigious chair.

He has held the post since 1979, and he will continue to work at Cambridge, his research uninterrupted.

But if this whole loss-of-title thing starts to annoy him, Professor Hawking might want to send his CV to universities in the United States. Colleges on this side of the pond ceased enforcing a mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1994, when an academic exemption for a federal age-discrimination law expired.