Access: Hawking radiation and the simplest things

Stephen Hawking radiated cool. He made nerdy physics cool. At the same time, he made disability cool, and synthetic speech sexy.  He was the outstanding physicist of his time. And because of, rather than despite, his communication impairment, he was also the outstanding physics communicator of his time, and perhaps all time.
His time has now run out.  Time was something he understood.  He wrote best selling books on it. At 21 he was given two years. Many disabled people live tenuous lives which can force the sorting out of what really is important. In the disability world, professionals fear…