A biography of one of the most remarkable figures in theoretical physics since Einstein describes Hawking's childhood, Cambridge days, and battle with his illness and discusses his theories. Reprint. AB. K.

Kitty Ferguson received her bachelor's and master's degrees from the Juilliard School of music in New York City and was for many years a professional musician. After a year spent with her husband (a Rutgers University professor) and family at Cambridge University in England, she decided to change course and devote herself full-time to a second lifelong interest, the physics of the universe. In addition to Stephen Hawking, she is the author of Black Holes in Spacetime. She lives in Chester, New Jersey, and has two grown sons and a young daughter.