While this is not a biography, a brief outline of Hawking's life gives insight into how he became interested in the work that has made him, arguably, the world's greatest scientist. Not a particularly good student but an active, athletic kid, he stumbled into science, then contracted a disease that precluded physical activity. He has not allowed his health to define him, rather he has pushed the envelope and opened exploration into new ways of looking at the cosmos and how it works.

Ferguson's writing style is quite readable and the science is explained in such a way that, while I don't truly understand quantum mechanics, I gain a faint grasp of it's about and the journey from Einstein to string theory to Hawking's belief there is one theory that underlies everything about how the universe began, where it's going, and how it operates.

This is a book I'll keep to read again. And again.

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