This week’s sad news of Professor Stephen Hawking’s passing did not just rock the science world, it was major world news. He was one of the few to achieve mainstream popularity whilst producing the kind of scientific ideas that will be remembered long after his death. In many ways, he became an icon; the image that many people imagine when they think of a scientist. Much has already been written about his remarkable life, the theories he propounded, his disability, his sense of humour and his ability to communicate cutting edge cosmology to the public, and I will have nothing new to say on these, but they have got me thinking about the nature of iconic status in science, whether we can expect to ever have an icon like him again, and whether we even need one.
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