Stephen Hawking -- A Brief History of Tom ... I'm a Pats Fan Now

Stephen Hawking -- the most wicked smaht guy on the planet -- is now an official fan of the New England Patriots ... and he's got the custom jersey to prove it.

Pats owner Bob Kraft and his girlfriend, Ricki Noel Lander, met with Hawking -- who was in Boston to lecture at Harvard earlier this week about black holes.

At some point during the trip, Kraft presented him with the custom jersey -- which included the number Pi ... also known as 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288 ...

Probably easier to just use the symbol ...