Stephen Hawking was a English theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He died recently.
He was quite famous I believe, do you know what disease he was afflicted by?
He was born in 1942 and held academic positions at Cambridge. He suffered from motor neuron disease.
Oh interesting, do you know if his motor neuron disease had a more formal name? I swear I've heard it referred to by something else.
There are several names given to it, like MND. Its origins are not yet known.
Interesting, now that I think of it I think it's called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, do you know much about that?
Yes it is also called Lou Gehrig disease. It causes the death of neurons controlling muscles.
That sounds about right, I think it was named after a baseball player, but I'm not positive.
Yes Lou Gehrig, who played for the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1939, had the disease.
That's unfortunate, it probably ended what sounds like a very long and successful baseball career.