Stephen Hawking is just amazing. I really enjoyed the portions of this book about his younger life and felt it helped humanize him, as he is often just viewed as a brain. but holy cow - what a brain he has. I don't consider myself to be very science minded so the science based portions were a bit of a struggle for me, but his ideas and how he can even think up things like that just astounds me. I'm giving this 4 stars more out of respect than enjoyment.

The chapters with summaries of Hawking's work are quite good - I recommend them to anyone who found Hawking's own A Brief History Of Time difficult to understand. I particularly liked that the authors put the work in context of other scientific thought.

But the chapters on his personal life were irritating. Originally written in 1992, this 2002 edition still has very outdated (i.e. ableist) language and old-fashioned ideas about the role of a professor's wife. Which I could deal with except that there wasn't much insight to either Hawking's personality, or family life, or the institutions he worked for and with.

The authors obviously wanted to write about Hawking because they looked up to him. But they go out of their way to excuse any negative thing he did, which is a missed opportunity for better understanding of what drove him. I'd rather they'd been more impartial.

Loved the way the authors juxtaposed between the life of Stephen Hawking and the scientific work and mind of Stephen Hawking. It made it easier to digest the scientific research than if it had all been about the research without a break in-between. The last sentence in the book speaks directly to what is occurring in my life now:

"One has to be grown up enough to realize that life is not fair. You have to do the best you can in the situation you are in." - Stephen Hawking

Got this book from the Book of the Month club. I didn't know who was Stephen Hawking at that time. But the story fascinated me.

Interesting account of Stephen Hawking's life; albeit one where the chapters on that life are often alternated with chapters on the science he was working on. This is hard to avoid - one can't really do a decent bio of a person while ignoring their life's work! - but for the first half of the book I was far more interested in the biography chapters, while the pure science ones were a slightly annoying interruption. Then, about halfway through, it all swapped round for me. I actually found myself taking notes on the science chapters, fascinated and trying to understand better, then slogging my way through the life history just so I could get back to note-taking!

Never happy, that's me.

There were some very heavy scientific parts in this book that were hard to understand as I am not a person of great physics and astronomy intellect. I liked the beginning a lot where the books talked about Steven Hawking’s childhood and young adult life.

A well written book covering all aspects of Stephen Hawking's life. The writers provide a good rhythm in alternating between the life of Hawking and the science behind his lifelong work.

I had to skip the chapters about physics, I'm way too stupid for these...

(btw, I've just realised i've finished reading this book on a day of Stephen Hawking's funeral...)

Great book about a great man. Bit scientific, but a lot of good info if you focus.

I had to skim the chapters on his science, but the biographical chapters of this famous physicist were very interesting.

EXCELLENT! A mix of biography and science. I would bet this is the book that led to the film on Hawking with Eddie Redmayne.

tStephen Hawking was one of the greatest scientists ever to live on this planet. He helped to completely change the realm of theoretical physics and ideas about the universe, and he did all of that while confined to a wheelchair for fifty years.
tThe book Stephen Hawking: A life in Science, written by Michael White and John Gribbin, could be described as half biography and half science textbook. What I mean by this is that the book would outline a part of Hawking’s life and then explain the science that he was working on at the time. The biographical chapters focused on Hawking’s personal life and academics, including the days of his youth, his marriage, his crippling disease, the books he wrote, and the movie he starred in that was based upon his book A Brief History of Time. It followed his life up until 1992, which is when this biography was written. In several sections, the authors did write about Hawking in the present tense because he was alive at the time of publication. The scientifical chapters focused on theories surrounding the beginnings of the universe and black holes, which were the main branches of science that Hawking studied. It also described the efforts to create a Grand Unified Theory that would be a set of equations that described every force in the universe including gravity, electromagnetic force, weak nuclear force, and strong nuclear force.
tI found the book to be quite interesting and informative, although a little outdated. However, I doubt that people that are not very interested in science would like this book. A section that I found interesting was when they were describing the universe 0.1 seconds after the big bang. The book states, “The temperature was 30 billion degrees, and the Universe consisted of a mixture of very high energy radiation (photons) and material particles including neutrons, protons and electrons” (White 86). While not many people would find this interesting, I thought that it was fascinating that the universe had been so hot and that there weren’t even atoms at the time. However, some descriptions of Stephen Hawking were downright hilarious. At one point, the book states, “His favourite move, when he is annoyed by something someone has said, is to drive over their toes” (White 162). I found that it was hilarious that Hawking would use his wheelchair in such a manner and in fact his great regret, at least in 1992, is that “he’s not yet run over Margaret Thatcher” (White 162). This book uses colorful description effectively as shown by the previous example, but does not have much dialogue since the biography sections are written in a similar style to a documentary. There is a good reflection which talks about how Hawking became such a great scientist even though he had so many problems in his life. I would recommend this book to anybody that is interested in science and is looking for a lighter scientifical read that is mixed in with a biography of a major scientist. However, if you are not interested in science at all, this book might not be the right choice for you.

t