David Schramm; Expert on Big Bang Theory

Astrophysicist David Schramm, one of the world’s leading authorities on the big bang theory of how the universe began, has died in a plane crash in Colorado, a spokeswoman at the University of Chicago said Saturday. He was 52.

Schramm was en route to his second home in Aspen from Chicago on Friday when the twin-engine plane he was piloting crashed outside Denver, she said.

No one else was on the aircraft and the cause of the accident is under investigation, the spokeswoman said.

“All I can say is that David was larger than life in many ways,” famed Cambridge University physicist Stephen Hawking, the author of “A Brief History of Time,” said in a statement issued by the University of Chicago.

“His death is a great loss to physics, his friends and the Aspen Center for Physics,” he added.

Schramm’s colleagues in Chicago said that many experts in the field around the world were his students at one time.

“He was one of the brightest stars in astrophysics,” Professor Edward Kolb told Reuters. “I can’t think of anyone more influential in the U.S. in this field.”

“He was interested in applying nuclear physics and also elementary particle physics to understand stellar explosion known as supernova and also the type of nuclear reaction that went on in the big bang,” he said.

In addition to his academic accomplishments, Schramm was an influential figure in the government’s science policy and was keen on bringing science to the public, colleagues said.

Schramm was also an avid skier and mountain climber, as well as a pilot for about 15 years, Kolb said.