ABOUT THE BOOK
Among the great modern myths, some are linked to science, such as Einstein's brain pinned by Roland Barthes in his Mythologies. More recently, Stephen Hawking, the brilliant English astrophysicist, has joined this line of "brain men". He has been immobilized in a wheelchair by a degenerative disease, but this has not prevented him from discovering the secrets of black holes, from occupying Isaac Newton's chair at Cambridge, or from writing worldwide best-sellers, such as his Brief History of Time in the 1990s.
Borrowing from ethnologists their tools of investigation and analysis, Hélène Mialet set out to understand how the Hawking myth was constructed. First surprise: Hawking is certainly a man like any other, but he is also a complex set of interconnected individuals and machines. The second surprise is that if we stay away from him, we can form a relatively clear image of him - the uniform image that the media present. But the closer you get to him, the more the image becomes blurred...
As to where Stephen Hawking is, somewhere between myth and reality, the enigma remains. And the reader, at the end of the investigation, understands that he has learned as much about himself, and about the way science is done, as about the hero of the story.
Borrowing from ethnologists their tools of investigation and analysis, Hélène Mialet set out to understand how the Hawking myth was constructed. First surprise: Hawking is certainly a man like any other, but he is also a complex set of interconnected individuals and machines. The second surprise is that if we stay away from him, we can form a relatively clear image of him - the uniform image that the media present. But the closer you get to him, the more the image becomes blurred...
As to where Stephen Hawking is, somewhere between myth and reality, the enigma remains. And the reader, at the end of the investigation, understands that he has learned as much about himself, and about the way science is done, as about the hero of the story.
REVIEWS
Social Studies of Science by Michael Lynch
LA Review of Books by Ken Alder
Science
The New Scientist
Times Higher Education Supplement
Technology and Culture by Don Ihde
Common Knowledge by Ian Hacking
The British Journal for the History of Science
Disability & Society
Qui Parle
New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
Liens socio
IN THE MEDIA
La Recherche (in French)
Radio France Internationale (in French)
France Inter (in French)
France Culture (in French)
Radio France Internationale (in French)
France Inter (in French)
France Culture (in French)