I know being an "elitist" is not in fashion these days, but very few of us (and certainly not me) are qualified to answer this. Looking at his body of work, th

I know being an "elitist" is not in fashion these days, but very few of us (and certainly not me) are qualified to answer this. Looking at his body of work, there is no question that Stephen Hawking was a genius, so this is not a slight against him in any way. However, the most famous people in a given field arre not necessarily those who are advancing the field the most. While a Google search will turn up lists of his contributions, most people who are not practicing physicists would even know the names of all the other people who should be considered let alone their contributions. So how can we realistically compare?