The hilarious John Oliver interview with Stephen Hawking above was one of our favourite videos of 2014. And while we're sure you've all watched it before, we thought the 73rd birthday of the theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author was reason enough to enjoy his take down of comedian John Oliver on Last Week Tonight all over again.

Hawking's birthday, on the 8th of January, is also a very impressive milestone in its own right - at the age of 21, the physicist was diagnosed with the motor neuron disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and was given only two years to live.

Clearly, 50 years later, he's proven his doctors wrong - and we're so grateful that he did. His mind has brought us some of the most inspiring science books, papers and theories in modern times, in addition the John Oliver burn above.

Hawking also recently updated his famous speech system and made it open-source, so that it could help people with neurodegenerative disease to communicate with others.

So from all of us here at ScienceAlert: Happy birthday, Stephen Hawking, thank you for all the science.

Source: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver