Reviewed by Sheri Harper

Stephen Hawking A Biography
by Kristine Larsen
Prometheus Books
http://www.prometheusbooks.com
ISBN: 978-1-59102-574-0, Paperback: 215 pages, October 2007

Stephen Hawking A Biography by Kristine Larsen turned out to be a book I truly appreciated because it laid out the last forty years of research into cosmology from the perspective of one of the most famous physicists. It also tells the story of his two marriages, his children, his life as a student and professor, as a public figure, and of the difficulties caused by living with Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS.

Each chapter in the biography provides a complete set of footnoted references. A glossary of many of the scientific terms is provided. Although the biography is laid out to follow Stephen Hawking’s life and a timeline provided at the start of the book, chapters tend to delve partly into events happening in his life, and partly into where his research takes him.

What becomes clear in the discussion of ALS’s effect on Stephen Hawking’s life is that his tremendous will to live and continue his work is inspiring for anyone that faces a physical handicap. The steady progress of the disease, from requiring help walking with a cane, to the need to use a wheelchair, to the loss of his ability to talk after having a tracheotomy is devastating. What provides hope in the story is the medical science advances and the many changes to law that help handicapped people that he both took advantage of and for which he became a main spokesperson.

Offset against his family life, and struggle with ALS is his career as a physicist. I found these parts especially interesting, starting with his early correction to Hoyle and Narlikar’s theory of gravity and the occurrence of singularities in cosmology. Other subjects discussed are black holes, gamma ray bursts, the advent of x-ray astronomy, the no-boundary proposal effect on cosmology, and the inflationary model of the universe. The book documents many of the interactions Hawking’s had with his colleagues and how the academic community works.

Many more subjects are presented in this biography including Stephen Hawking’s books, A Brief History of Time and A Briefer History of Time, and his interest in science fiction and his appearances on Star Trek. Overall, this book told by mathematician and astronomer, Kristine Larsen is a useful book about Stephen Hawkings, but it also tells the story of the study of the universe in the past 60 years. The biography is a slim but dense work that is very easy to read.



About the reviewer: Sheri Fresonke Harper is a poet and writer. She's been published in many small journals and is working on her second science fiction novel. See www.sfharper.com

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