Stephen Hawking is the new Albert Einstein

Stephen Hawking may not have a convenient equation that everyone can remember, but he is rapidly replacing Albert Einstein as the canonical genius. For decades, the vision of genius was a guy with a large shock of white hair, and a moustache to match. Einstein not only came up with lots of groundbreaking theories, he also became the face of science during the second World War, lending his name to a key letter sent to the President of the US encouraging nuclear research (for bombs, of course).

But there's something oddly compelling about Stephen Hawking. For one, here's a guy who, in most any other situation, would be severely unemployed. And yet, because he can keep a lot of things in his head, he's able to do a lot of physics. And while he's not able to type very quickly, he's able to type enough to write books. His synthetic voice adds to his otherworldly persona.

Already, there have been some imitators. X-Files had an episode about cockroaches that combined Stephen Hawking with Rodney Brooks (Brooks believes in evolutionary machines, and is well known for his insect robots, with what he claims is emergent intelligence made up of simple rules). My brother said that Christopher Reeve (his being in a wheelchair was due to a horsing mishap that had him thrown off) played a Stephen Hawking like scientist.

There's MC Hawking, where some guy does "nerdcore rap" using the synthetic Stephen Hawking voice. (Apparently, Justin finds some of the lyrics hysterical and eminently repeatable).

People know even less about what Stephen Hawking has done, as a scientist, than what Einstein has done. At the very least, they know he had a theory of relativity. They may not know what that theory states, but they know it exists. Hawking? Do people even know about Hawking radiation? That he is a cosmologists who studies/models black holes?

Even if they don't, they have some idea what he looks like, and that he's one smart dude.

And in this day and age, sadly, it will have to do.