When author Kitty Ferguson approached British physicist Stephen Hawking with the idea of writing a book about him and his theories, he agreed to help her "in any way I can." She also interviewed numerous other eminent physicists about the next frontier of physics. Now you hold in your hands the splendid result of this endeavor.

You may only know of Stephen Hawking as a scientist confined to a wheelchair. He has actually led a life of astounding mobility, in which he has ranged about the universe. This is not a biography per se. It is rather the story of one man’s quest to find, in physics parlance, the "Theory of Everything." The "Theory of Everything" would be nothing short of an explanation of the universe and everything that happens in it.

Stephen Hawking was born in 1942 in Oxford, England, the son of Isobel and Frank Hawking, a medical researcher. Hawking describes himself as having been an ordinary English schoolboy. He attended Oxford University and went on to pursue his graduate studies in physics at Cambridge University.

It was during his college years that Hawking first began to show the symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the degenerative neurological disorder known in the United States as "Lou Gehrig’s disease." Despite this ailment, he went on to marry, have three children, and all the while build his reputation as a physicist.

In these pages you will encounter a multitude of amazing paradoxes: Beginnings may be endings…. Two great scientific theories taken together seem to give us nonsense…. Empty space isn’t empty…. Black holes aren’t black…. Cruel circumstances can lead to happiness, although fame and success may not….and a man whose appearance inspires shock and pity takes us laughing to where the boundaries of space and time ought to be–but are not.