As a reminder, this is part three in a three-part series on legendary physicists and their dumbest mistakes.

To start today's episode, let's play a little game.

All name a famous scientist and you say the first theory or idea that comes to mind.

Start with Isaac Newton.

You're probably thinking, gravity, right?

Next up, Marie Curie.

She brings to mind radio activity.

What about Charles Darwin?

Probably evolution.

Now for a hard one, Stephen Hawking.

To be sure you can probably call to mind certain things about him as a person,

the wheelchair that book hero to brief history of time, that unforgettable voice.

The expansion of the universe suggested the possibility that the universe had a beginning at some time in the past.

The point at which the universe may have started out became known as the Big Bang.

But what exactly did Hawking do scientifically?

Not many people know.

So today's episode is about Hawking's most famous discovery,

which was intimately tied up with a horrible blunder.

But his Einstein showed us last week.

Sometimes a ghastly blunder is the surest way forward.

From the Science History Institute, this is Sam Keane and the Disappearing Spoon,

a topsy, turvy, sciencey history podcast,

...