Hawking Hawking: The Selling of a Scientific Celebrity

Charles Seife

Aug 2021 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Tom Perkins

About this audiobook

When Stephen Hawking died, he was widely recognized as the world's best physicist, and even its smartest person. He was neither. In Hawking Hawking, science journalist Charles Seife explores how Stephen Hawking came to be thought of as humanity's greatest genius. Hawking spent his career grappling with deep questions in physics, but his renown didn't rest on his science. He was a master of self-promotion, hosting parties for time travelers, declaring victory over problems he had not solved, and wooing billionaires. Confined to a wheelchair and physically dependent on a cadre of devotees, Hawking still managed to captivate the people around him-and use them for his own purposes. A brilliant expose and powerful biography, Hawking Hawking uncovers the authentic Hawking buried underneath the fake. It is the story of a man whose brilliance in physics was matched by his genius for building his own myth.

About the author

Charles Seife is the author of several books, including Proofiness and Virtual Unreality. He has written for a wide variety of publications, including the New York Times, Wired, New Scientist, Science, Scientific American, and the Economist. He is a professor of journalism at New York University and lives in New York City.

An award-winning audio engineer for over forty years, Tom Perkins has expanded his skills to narrating and has more than sixty titles to his credit. He learned by working with the world's best voice talent during his career, and he continues to engineer a variety of projects.