Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 (300 years after the death of Galileo) in Oxford，England.His parents' house was in north London，but during the second world war Oxford was considered as a safer place to have babies.When he was eight，his family moved to St Albans，a town about 20 miles north of London.At eleven Stephen went to St Albans School，and then on to University College，Oxford，his father's old college.Stephen wanted to do mathematics，although his father would have preferred medicine.There was no mathematics，so he did physics instead.After three years and not very much work he was awarded a First Class Honours Degree in Natural Science.
Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in cosmology(宇宙学)，there being no one working in that area in Oxford at the time.His supervisor(导师)was Denis Sciama，although he had hoped to get Fred Hoyle who was working in Cambridge.After gaining his Ph.D.he became first a Research Fellow，and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College.After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973 Stephen came to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics，and since 1979 has held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.The chair was founded in 1663 with money left in the will of the Reverend Henry Lucas，who had been the member of Parliament for the University.It was first held by Isaac Barrow，and then in 1663 by Isaac Newton.
His many publications include The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime(《时空的大规模结构》)with G．F.R Ellis，General Relativity：An Einstein Centenary Survey(《广义相对论：爱因斯坦世纪眺望》)with W. Israel，and 300 Years of Gravity(《重力300年》)with W．Israel.Stephen Hawking has two popular books published；his best seller A Brief History of Time(《时间简史》)．
【词海拾贝】
1．be considered as 被看作
2．award v．奖给，授予 n．奖品，奖项
3．do research in 做……方面的研究
4．later on 后来
5．hold the post of 任；担任
6．best seller 畅销书
