The book 'A Brief History of Time' has been written by whom?

The answer is A) Stephen Hawking. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes was published in 1988 and became one of the best-selling popular science books of its era. It explains cosmology, the Big Bang, black holes and the search for a unified theory in non-technical language. Hawking was a theoretical physicist at Cambridge, known for showing that black holes emit radiation, now called Hawking radiation.

Why the others are wrong:

• J.V. Narlikar is an Indian astrophysicist, known for the Hoyle-Narlikar theory and for popular science writing in Indian languages. He did not write this book.
• C.V. Raman discovered the Raman effect (1928) and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. He is not the author.
• Satyendra Nath Bose developed Bose-Einstein statistics, and the boson is named after him. He is not the author.

This sits under Science and Technology in the GS syllabus, where questions often test scientists and their contributions. For Mains, it links to science popularisation and the role of science communication in building a scientific temper.

Trap: Aspirants who recognise the Indian names may pick a famous Indian scientist by association. Match the author to the book, not to the field.