Stephen William Hawking,(born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist. Hawking is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He has made major contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black hole. He is author of the runaway popular science bestseller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

His scientific career has spanned more than 40 years and his books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity and world-renowned theoretical physicist. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.[3] Hawking is disabled by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known in the United States as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The illness has progressed over the years and he is now almost completely paralysed.

Read reviews of Stephen Hawking's works on JSTOR, an online collection of eJournals.