Stephen Hawking: `His laboratory was the universe`
(World News Science)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Everyone knew of Stephen Hawking`s cosmic brilliance, but few could comprehend it. Not even top-notch astronomers. Hawking, who died at his home in Cambridge, England, on Wednesday at age 76, became the public face of science genius. He appeared on `Star Trek: The Next Generation,` voiced himself in `The Simpsons` cartoon series and wrote the best seller `A Brief History of Time.` He sold 9 million copies of that book, though many readers didn`t finish it. It`s been called `the least-read best-seller ever.` In some ways, Hawking was the inheritor of Albert Einstein`s mantle of the genius-as-celebrity. ......