What is everyone's opinion on Stephen Hawking?

[mitcho]

I have heard a lot of mixed opinions regarding Stephen Hawking and some of his publications. He is widely considered to be a genius and one of the greatest scientists of modern times but most of these opinions come from outside the scientific community. I have also heard that he is rather up himself and extremely overrated. From a scientist's point of view, what is everyone's opinion on him and his work?
Thanks.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Everyone's opinion on Stephen Hawking is different. His mother's is especially favorable.

 

[mitcho]

Well I suppose a better question would be one that doesn't involve personal opinion. Do you think that Stephen Hawking is worthy of the title of "one of the greatest scientists of modern times" and do you think that he is overrated or genuinely a great scientist?

 

[revnaknuma]

I don't know whether he is a genius or not.
However, I am sure he is the most popular physicist.

 

[JaredJames]

I'd be interested to see what makes you consider him a bad scientist. I've not seen anything of his mainstream stuff that would make me think he's no good.

 

[Pythagorean]

he's a rockstar!

 

[Ben Niehoff]

I haven't read his mainstream stuff, except to briefly glance through one of my gf's books.

I have read a few of his papers, though. He made some brilliant contributions to GR and quantum gravity back in the 70's and 80's. My advisor is one of his former students. I hear that he does still do physics work; I'm not sure what.

The impression I get is that with his popular books, he has simply found a way to capitalize on the media attention he receives due to his physical condition. Wouldn't you?

I also get the impression he includes a lot of his opinions in his books because otherwise people would try to paint him a completely different way, as often happens to famous people.

 

[Proton Soup]

the bets with colleagues are interesting.

 

[humanino]

It is very hard to find a more successful physicist.

• One has to remember that before Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems, people were generally focused on "finding a particular solution" to Einstein's equations. To put the emphasis on the "properties of any solution" was a major shift in mindset. Under very generic conditions, singularities are unavoidable. This is contrary to the belief held before in particular by the russian school, that the singularity was merely a consequence of the perfect symmetry assumed before collapse. The perfect symmetry is not necessary. Even worse, assuming a "positivity of energy", there must be a singularity somewhere.
• Beyond classical theorems, we do not have many formulae involving both G and hbar. One of the very first question anyone will ask when presented with a theory of quantum gravity is "does it reproduce Hawking's entropy ?".

He deserves his status of world first class physicist just for those two contributions, and independently of anything else he has been involved in.

There is no doubt that he was a very successful communicator as well. Very few featured in the simpsons for instance.

 

[Kevin_Axion]

I think many people forget why he isn't as productive as he could have been. He does all of his calculations in his head without pencil or paper, he can't even talk to people productively or express his ideas with precision, it's difficult and I think as much as he achieved (which is greater then most physicists will ever achieve), he is worthy of being one of the greatest physicists alive.

 

[zomgwtf]

It is very hard to find a more successful physicist.

• One has to remember that before Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems, people were generally focused on "finding a particular solution" to Einstein's equations. To put the emphasis on the "properties of any solution" was a major shift in mindset. Under very generic conditions, singularities are unavoidable. This is contrary to the belief held before in particular by the russian school, that the singularity was merely a consequence of the perfect symmetry assumed before collapse. The perfect symmetry is not necessary. Even worse, assuming a "positivity of energy", there must be a singularity somewhere.
• Beyond classical theorems, we do not have many formulae involving both G and hbar. One of the very first question anyone will ask when presented with a theory of quantum gravity is "does it reproduce Hawking's entropy ?".

He deserves his status of world first class physicist just for those two contributions, and independently of anything else he has been involved in.

There is no doubt that he was a very successful communicator as well. Very few featured in the simpsons for instance.

Agreed completely, I don't even see why anyone would question his contributions to the science community. That people would think he is just taking advantage of his 'situation' just because he has said situation is ridiculous.

 

[mugaliens]

Brilliant physicist, outstanding communicator, and so long as he can read, think, and write, he'll continue to make noteworthy contributions as the Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at Cambridge.

Unfortunately, he left the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics before Data could fulfill the position. :)