ABSTRACT
Whatever the truth, there is no doubt that the singular success of A Brief History of Time made science a prospectively lucrative branch of publishing and also made it respectable for scientists to try their hands at reaching a non-specialist audience. (In 1989, you could almost hear Hawking’s colleagues in the scientific community muttering sotto voce: ‘If he can do it, why shouldn’t I?’) Before the big bang, talking to the masses was generally regarded as infra dig, something you normally did in your dotage or when you had run out of ideas for your most important activity-research.
