Movie-A-Day #8: A Brief History of Time (1991).

Yesterday we looked at Galileo, the greatest scientist of his age, so today let’s look at perhaps the greatest scientist of own age – Stephen Hawking – who is celebrating his 69th birthday today. His work in theoretical physics has set the tone for most of the cutting edge research on both the astronomical level and the atomic level for the past several decades. Hawking’s research specialties – which include black holes, the Big Bang and the nature of time – can be complex and confusing for the layperson. Luckily documentarian Errol Morris’ great adaptation of Hawking’s book “A Brief History of Time” does a great job of explaining these things in easy-to-understand terms. While the film may be 20 years old by now and, consequently, a little behind the current state of the science, it’s still a good introduction to the world of theoretical cosmology – a world where everything you thought was science fiction may actually be science fact.