The world saw Stephen Hawking as an oracle. In fact, he was wonderfully human | Philip Ball

Like no other scientist, Hawking was romanticised by the public. His death allows us to see past the fairytalePoignantly, Stephen Hawking ’sdeath at the age of 76 humanises him again. It ’s not just that, as a public icon as recognisable as any A-list actor or rock star, he came to seem a permanent fixture of the cultural landscape. It was also that his physical manifestation – the immobile body in customised wheelchair, the distinctive voice that pronounced with the oracular ca lm of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey – gave him the aura of a different kind of being, notoriously described by the anthropologist Hélène Mialet as “more machine than man”.He was, of course, not only mortal but precariously so. His survival for more than half a century after his diagnosis with motor neurone disease shortly after his 21st birthday seemed to give him only a few years to live is one of the most remarkable feats of determination and sheer medical marvels of our time. Equally astonishing was the life that Hawking wrought from that excruciatingly difficult circumstance. It was not so much a story of survival as a modern fairytale in which he, as the progress of his disease left him increasingly incapacitated, seemed only to grow in stature. He made seminal contributions to physics, wrote bestselling books, appeared in television shows, and commanded attention and awe at his every pronouncement.Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Stephen Hawking Disability Science Physics Source Type: news