This is the story of one of the most remarkable figures of the late 20th century - Professor Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge genius who has earned an international reputation as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein. His book, A Brief History of Time, has sold eight million copies worldwide and familiarized a whole generation with complex but exciting scientific theories. When Kitty Ferguson approached Stephen Hawking with the idea of writing a book about him and asked him to help her make certain she understood his theories, he agreed to do so and also supplied her with material about his childhood and life. It is not a biography per se. It is rather the story of one man's quest to find the theory of everything. 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.