**FILE** Stephen Hawking, the thinker, physicist, mathmatician and author of the best-seller "A Brief History of Time," lectures in Santa Clara, Calif., in this file photo from April 11, 1996. Hawking showed off his sense of humor Monday, Dec. 11,2006, telling an Israeli TV interviewer that "the only advantage of my disability is that I do not get put on a lot of boring committees." (AP Photo/Craig Fujii-File))