Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science

Front Cover
Penguin Books India, 1992 - Biography & Autobiography - 304 pages
A Gripping Account Of A Physicist Whose Speculations Could Prove As Revolutionary As Those Of Albert Einstein... It Can Be Consulted As A Clear And Authoritative Guide Through Three Decades Of Hawking S Central Contributions To Cosmology.
- Bernard Dixon In The New Statesman & Society
Excellent... From The Opening Pages, Which Relate The Occasion When Shirley Maclaine Sought An Audience With Her Hero In A Cambridge Restaurant, To The Final Chapter On Hollywood, Fame And Fortune , The Book Is Well-Nigh Unputdownable... [It] Ought To Be Read Alongside A Brief History Of Time As A Kind Of Explanatory Supplement.
- Heather Cooper In The Times Educational Supplement

Fascinating... What Makes This Book So Rewarding Is The Way That The Authors Have Blended Their Account Of Hawking S Science With That Of His Life, Giving A Picture Of A Remarkable Scientist As A Remarkable Person.
- Tony Osman In The Spectator

It S Compulsive Reading, Maybe Because Hawking Towers Above It All, A Complex And Fascinating Character Who Remains Strangely Elusive: Boyish Yet Indomitable, Stubborn Yet Charming, A Private Man Revelling In Fame.
- Clare Francis In The Sunday Express

[Their Book] Conveys How Scientific Research Is Not Just A Dry Intellectual Pursuit But An Adventure Full Of Joy, Despair And Humour, And Fraught With The Sort Of Inter-Personal Problems And Rivalries Which Mark All Human Endeavours.
- Bernard Carr In The Independent On Sunday

Few Scientists Become Legends In Their Own Lifetime. Stephen Hawking Is One. It Is Good To Have This Well-Documented And Immensely Readable Biography To Remind Us That The Media-Hyped Mute Genius In The Wheelchair Is In Fact A Sensitive, Humorous, Ambitious And Occasionally Wilful Human Being.
- Paul Davies In The Times Higher Education Supplement
 

Contents

The Day Galileo Died
1
Classical Cosmology
21
Going Up
40
Doctors and Doctorates
56
From Black Holes to the Big Bang
74
Marriage and Fellowship
88
Singular Solutions
105
The Breakthrough Years
118
When Black Holes Explode
136
The Foothills of Fame
153
When the Universe has Babies
207
A Brief History of Time
220
Hollywood Fame and Fortune
264
References
294
Copyright

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About the author (1992)

Michael White is a British writer. He was born in 1959 and studied at King's College London. He has been a science editor of British GQ and a columnist for the Sunday Express in London. From 1984 to 1991, he was a science lecturer at d'Overbroeck's College in Oxford before becoming a full-time writer, of both fiction and non-fiction. Among his non-fiction works are: Coffee with Newton, Galileo Antichrist: A Biography, The Fruits of War, Tolkien: A Biography, Leonardo: The First Scientist, and Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer. White also collaborated with John Gribbin on 'A Life in Science' Series, featuring biographies of Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin. His novels include: The Art of Murder, The Borgia Ring, The Medici Secret, and Equinox. He has also written numerous novels under pseudonyms, including; the E-Force trilogy as Sam Fisher, and The Titanic Enigma, as Tom west. Most recently, White co-wrote the international bestseller Private down Under, with James Patterson. John R. Gribbin (born 19 March 1946) is a British science writer, an astrophysicist, and a visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex. The topical range of his prolific writings include quantum physics, human evolution, climate change, global warming, the origins of the universe, and biographies of famous scientists. He also writes science fiction. In 1984, Gribbin published In Search of Schrödinger's Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality, the book that he is best known for, which continues to sell well even after years of publication. At the 2009 World Conference of Science Journalists, the Association of British Science Writers presented Gribbin with their Lifetime Achievement award.

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