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Comment by timkam | Hacker News Reader

I think the author is tearing down the brand rather than the person. And I think it's good. For sure, Hawking's individual productivity was limited in later years, as was his control of what would be associated with this name. For sure, Cambridge tried to profit from Hawking's name in ways that are only remotely related to his research. For sure, other, similarly talented researchers contributed to many of Hawking's achievements.

IMHO, it is important that somebody discusses these issues, because we should not glorify the intellect of individuals to such an extreme extent. Woit might hold some research-/community-related grudges, but I don't think this makes his post less relevant.

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Hawking and his "brand" did immeasurable good for humanity, though.

First of all, as the author acknowledges, his work actual scientific work brought huge steps (leaps, even) in the field of cosmology. To say he doesn't stand up to Einstein is probably wrong from both directions: that Einstein was an untouchable intellect, himself; but also that Hawking wasn't as brilliant, which I think is clearly debatable.

Second, Hawking's "brand" inspired generations of people to go into science. I have no doubt in my mind that we'd have fewer people in hard science if it weren't for him, his inspiring personal story, those books, and even his pop culture appearances.

What was the author's point here? That Hawking may have written less of those books than we think? That he wasn't the top theoretical physicist in the world at the end of his life? Sounds like this guy just wants to hawk someone's book.

Indeed. It's absurd to say that Hawking was overly branded by way of a comparison to Einstein who is an absolute meme.

If you want to say someone is overly branded why would you not compare them to someone else also overly branded?

> To say he doesn't stand up to Einstein...

Who said this, though?

First sentence, second paragraph:

> Hawking was a huge world-wide celebrity, widely considered by the public and the press to be the modern-day analog of Einstein, dominating the field of theoretical physics.

The implied message here and the rest of the article is that the public and the press are wrong about him.

No, I don't think that's a fair reading. The article (and more importantly perhaps, the book the article is discussing) say perhaps Hawking should not have dominated the field of theoretical physics for so long, especially in the popular imagination. That says nothing about where his sum contributions stand, only the direction his research took later in his career.

If I were to read anything into the comparison, it's that - as also suggested in this thread - Einstein is perhaps also overblown compared to Einstein.

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