Sure, we love the reality show Big Brother here in the States, but could Julie Chen go clicker-to-keyboard with science genius Stephen Hawking? We’ll never know because the US version didn’t think to ask Hawking to be a house guest. But the UK version did, offering him a chunk of change to say yes. He was delighted to be asked, but declined. A friend of his told The Sun, “He gets wacky offers all the time and is always turning stuff down. He has a good sense of humor and might find being in the house amusing for a bit. But he would end up bored rigid.” Though it’s hard to believe Hawking can get more rigid than he already is, the author of A Brief History of Time would no doubt have found that, in fact, time goes by so slowly, as Madonna put it rather succinctly, when you’re in the Big house with the likes of David Hasselhoff and Adam Ant as your allies. No fool, he’s waiting to fly in cramped quarters with Sigourney Weaver when Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic passenger rocket hurtles into outer space in 2008.