Our Sources & Editorial Method

This page explains how the site is researched and written, and the standards we hold ourselves to. We want this to be the most accurate and comprehensive guide to Stephen Hawking available, and that depends on being transparent about our method.

Who we are

This is an independent educational resource, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Estate of Stephen Hawking, his family, or the University of Cambridge. It is produced by a small editorial team with a strong interest in physics and in making Hawking's life and work accessible to everyone. A share of any revenue from book and product links supports the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

The sources we rely on

Our pages draw on a hierarchy of sources, in roughly this order of preference:

• Hawking's own writing, including his books and his scientific papers. His own words are always the primary source.
• Recorded interviews, lectures and documentaries in which he spoke directly.
• Reputable biographies, including those by Kitty Ferguson and Jane Hawking, listed on our page of books about Hawking.
• Established reference works and peer-reviewed science for the physics, cross-checked against more than one source.

We treat unsourced internet claims with caution, and we try never to repeat a striking fact or quotation that we cannot trace to a credible origin.

Our approach to accuracy

We aim to explain difficult physics in plain English without making it wrong. That is a balance, and where simplification risks distorting the science, we say so. Each substantial page carries a "last reviewed" date so you can see when we last checked it. Where genuine scientific uncertainty exists, such as the unresolved information paradox, we present it as open rather than settled.

Quotations

Misattributed quotations are one of the biggest problems in writing about Hawking. We attribute quotations to their original source wherever possible, and in our quotations archive we deliberately flag famous lines whose attribution to him is doubtful. We would rather omit a good quote than present a fake one.

Images

We use only images that are in the public domain or appropriately licensed, such as NASA photographs. We do not reproduce copyrighted photographs of Hawking without rights to do so.

Corrections

We will get things wrong sometimes, and we want to know when we do. If you spot an error, please contact us with the detail and, ideally, a source, and we will review and correct it. Maintaining trust is more important to us than being seen to be right.