Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science

A biography of the world's most brilliant scientist discusses Hawking's childhood, his twenty-five year battle with Lou Gehrig's Disease, his celebrity, the breakup of his marriage, and his revolutionary theories on the origin of the universe. 20,000 first printing.

YA-- This biography is really two books in one: the story of Hawking's life, and an explanation of the theoretical concepts related to his research into black holes and the origin of our universe. The authors describe his early life as a gifted, but not always motivated, student in the British school system and his eventual rise to scientific and popular celebrity status. The chapters that chronicle his heroic struggle with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) are particularly poignant. Those chapters that deal with the physics behind Hawking's research are written in a nontechnical style not unlike Hawking's own A Brief History of Time (Bantam, 1990). In fact, they provide a very accessible introduction to some of the most esoteric areas of modern physics and quantum mechanics. YAs interested in science will enjoy and relate to this title.
- Dennis McFaden, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The forces shaping the life of renowned physicist Hawking seem as strangely charged as those he describes in his physics. His British biographers, both scientists, examine their subject's personal history and ably fill in the spaces between his great leaps of theory. They avoid sentimentalizing the physicist's disabling ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), which struck him in his early 20s, while acknowledging that the condition has had a dramatic impact on his life and reputation. Gathering information from Hawking's colleagues (but not his estranged wife), the authors discuss his authorial success as well as his academic career, not failing to offer such bits of humanizing gossip as that he has a poster of Marilyn Monroe on his office door. Readers of Hawking's bestselling A Brief History of Time will find much of interest in this longer view of physics at work in one extraordinary person's life.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

White (Director of Science Studies/d'Overbroeck's College, Oxford) and Gribbin (Cosmic Coincidences, 1989, etc.) have produced a definitive biography of arguably the best-known cosmologist in the world. Stephen Hawking's accomplishments as theoretician on the origin and destiny of the universe are forever linked in the public mind to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)--the degenerative neurological disease that is slowly destroying the nerve cells that control Hawking's movement. At age 50, the 90-pound scientist, long confined to a wheelchair, communicates through fingertip control of a computer program that allows him to compose sentences synthesized into speech (described as sounding like someone speaking Canadian English with a Hungarian accent). It was not always so. White and Gribbin describe the early, healthy years, with prep school selected by ambitious parents: physician father Frank, a tropical- medicine expert who was frequently absent in Africa, and Isobel, whose left-wing politics left their mark on her son. Hawking's school days were marked by friendship with a bright group who flirted with religion and ESP, and built a computer. He showed marked ineptitude in sports but marked aptitude in mathematics. The diagnosis of ALS and Hawking's first creative bursts in math and physics all but coincided in his early 20s, when he had already moved to Cambridge and gotten married. He has since moved from strength to strength in the formation of ``singularity'' theory, the wedding of quantum mechanics and general relativity, and the generation of black holes in myriad changing forms. There aren't many warts in this bio, save for some comments on a colleague whose career Hawking almost destroyed, and a marriage in ruin: Hawking now lives with a new nurse/caretaker--the wife of the expert who adapted Hawking's computer to his wheelchair. A fascinating story overall, with the added plus that White and Gribbin are able to translate Hawking's bestselling A Brief History of Time for those who bought the book but found it incomprehensible. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Perhaps today's reigning world superstar of science--arguably a contemporary Einstein--is the brilliant, inspirational, and tragic Stephen Hawking. Stricken with the genetic affliction that in the United States is most commonly called "Lou Gehrig's Disease," Hawking has, from his wheelchair and through a speech synthesizer, conceived many of the truly revolutionary theories of modern physics. This biography draws upon interviews with many of Hawking's family, friends, and professional colleagues. In doing so, it conveys a very human, very readable account of the life and career of the enigmatic author of the technical best seller A Brief History of Time ( LJ 4/15/88) . White and Gribbin, two excellent science writers, are an ideal combination for this biography. It is sure to be popular in public libraries and will also be useful in undergraduate libraries. A complete scholarly biography of Hawking is probably several years away, but it is something that should be anticipated eagerly.
-Gregg Sapp, Montana State Univ. Libs., Bozeman
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.