lthough they knew little about physics, the marketing people sensed that the scientist's struggle to overcome his disability would put interest in the book. A Brief History of Time reached the best-seller list in 1988 and stayed there for a publishing eternity, more than two years. It has sold at least eight million copies and made its author a rich man, bringing him at least $6 million. This book was one of the first where the author’s handicaps overshadowed the books enlightening text. No one really read Hawking’s masterpiece cover to cover, unless they were REALLY bored and had the mental skills to actually know what in the world he was saying. The one supposedly for "ordinary folk” is hardly accessible to the average reader pondering his or her place in space and time. Consider one sentence: "However, in 1964 two more Americans, J.W. Cronin and Val Fitch, discovered that even the CP symmetry was not obeyed in the decay of certain particles called K-mesons." Hawking not only mixes and matches different scientific fields, but jumps back and forth between centuries. In one breath, he moves from 1800 to 1970; in the next, he leaps from Aristotle to Cal Tech. In fact, some critics have gone so far as to suggest that the book was more likely to confuse readers than to clarify scientific matters for them. This book was definitely one-of-a-kind, and so is it’s author, who with charm and humor, the once obscure professor became a media darling, and got to meet the queen of England, Steven Spielberg, and Shirley MacLaine. He made the covers of magazines, starred in documentaries about his books, and even appeared in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Hawking became a star not only because of his book sales, but because the public responded to his wit and felt compassion for his plight.It is amazing that Lou Gehrig's disease has not impeded Hawking's brilliant career. As a theoretician, he is not expected...
