The Prospect Interview #174: The real Stephen Hawking, with Philip Ball Recognising the humanity of a deified public figure Photo: Agencja Fotograficzna Caro / Alamy Stock Photo A new biography of Stephen Hawking argues that the celebrated scientist was shamelessly self-promoting and his reputation overrated. Philip Ball joins the Prospect Interview to discuss Charles Seife’s Hawking Hawking: The Making of a Scientific Celebrity and talks to arts and books editor Sameer Rahim about humanising a scientific deity, and why it was that Hawking, out of all of his other similarly accomplished peers, became a household name. You can read Philip Ball’s review of