The Mysteries of Stephen Hawking’s Universe Why did “A Brief History of Time” make its author the most famous scientist in the world? IAN BERRY/MAGNUM April 6, 2021 The last time Stephen Hawking was ever uncertain about his fame was before a lecture in Cambridge, in the winter of 1988. Even then, really, he should have been in no doubt. In previous years, he’d been profiled by Vanity Fair and The New York Times Magazine, and the BBC had run shows about his work. Then, that past April, his book on cosmology, A Brief History of Time, had been published to instant and staggering success. Bookstores ran out. People wore T-shirts printed with the words STEPHEN HAWKING FAN CLUB. Still, as one of his students drove him to the lecture, Hawking was tetchy. “I’m worried that nobody will show up.”