Stephen Hawking, brilliant and extraordinary, was spoken of with reverence and affection. Those who knew him have a dimmer view

Stephen Hawking, brilliant and extraordinary, was spoken of with reverence and affection. Those who knew him have a dimmer view

Stephen Hawking, brilliant and extraordinary, was spoken of with reverence and affection. Those who knew him have a dimmer view

Stephen Hawking: The dark side of genius

Philip Ball in The Guardian: When I wrote an unadoring review of Stephen Hawking’s final book, a collection of essays published posthumously in 2018, New Scientist suppressed some of my criticisms on the grounds that it was “too early” to voice anything other than praise for the physicist who died, aged 76, that March. It was apparently still too early in 2021, when no British publisher would touch Charles Seife’s exposé of Hawking’s bullying an…