Hacker News Reader

Hawking is a household name in the UK.

Not just in the UK. I would wager he's a household name in many houses the entire world over. His contribution to making physics accessible to everyone is... I fail to locate a word of sufficient magnitude to describe just how important and what an inspiration he was.

What if they picked a prominent female scientist?

Also, there was a theatrically released biopic for Hawking and he was featured on an episode of the Simpsons, I think he's pretty mainstream.

Did he ever find out more about that donut-shaped universe?

I would say there is a case for James Clark Maxwell, he's largely not remembered by people outside physics and electrical engineering.

Darwin was already used on tenner, Newton on the £1 note.