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Actually it does, this is from one paragraph from the article (there are more examples, and probably more from the book that the article is a review of): "Hawk
by ak_111 6y ago
Actually it does, this is from one paragraph from the article (there are more examples, and probably more from the book that the article is a review of):
"Hawking became “as much a brand as he was a person,” says Seife. Billionaire entrepreneurs traded on his name, from Yuri Milner to Richard Branson and Jeffrey Epstein (whose vanity conference on gravity in the Virgin Islands the physicist attended in 2006). In exchange, Hawking was taken on zero-gravity flights and invited to glitzy events and launches. This hawking of Hawking continues today: for a mere £19,000 you can buy a gold watch inlaid, like some medieval jewel-encrusted reliquary bearing a shard of Christ’s cross, with wooden disks “taken from the desk at which Hawking contemplated the mysteries of the universe.”
- coldtea 6y agoMade into a brand is not the same as deifycation. Not just in the literal sense (Pharaohs and some Roman Emperors were actually deified, not Hawking), but also in the metaphorical sense. Hawkings just had a very striking visual presense and story which was easy to remember (alas, because of his health issues mainly), and so became a stand in for "famous scientist" the average Joe knew, and the press could use a a common interviewee, reference, etc, when talking about physics. Otherwise people (whether into science or not) didn't care that much about him, nor they had particular esteem for his various views (unlike e.g. with Einstein).
- amelius 6y ago> Made into a brand is not the same as deification. For some brands it is. I can think of the "Jesus phone".