A blend of brilliance and humor made Stephen Hawking's cameos unforgettable

According to his daughter, Stephen Hawking defied early doubts about his intellect

Lucy Hawking details what it was like to be the daughter of the famed cosmologist and what his life looked like from her eyes. Among the anecdotes was Stephen's enjoyment of being on "The Simpsons" because production gave him a wheelchair with helicopter blades.

With his dry wit, Stephen Hawking warns of AI dangers and explains imaginary time

In this comedic interview with John Oliver, Stephen Hawking discusses his groundbreaking work in theoretical physics, his views on AI, and Oliver's chances of dating Charlize Theron in the multiverse—all with his trademark voice and humorous tone.

Despite his disability, Stephen Hawking reshaped our understanding of black holes

His theoretical work—especially on black holes emitting radiation, now known as Hawking radiation—challenged long-held ideas. He also brought complex physics to the public through bestselling books like "A Brief History of Time."

The speech software's origins at MIT led to Hawking's trademark voice being American

Stephen Hawking's trademark voice is called "Perfect Paul," but it mimics Dennis Klatt, an American researcher at MIT who developed the speech synthesis technology. Klatt used his voice during this development, which was immortalized through Hawking.

Using scientific bets, Hawking challenged and highlighted major physics ideas

Hawking famously placed wagers on high-stakes questions in theoretical physics—such as the Higgs boson—for fun and to draw attention to science. When Hawking lost a bet about Cygnus X-1 being a black hole, he paid up with a magazine subscription.

Stephen Hawking's final message

Famous cosmologist Stephen Hawking—who lived for half a century after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease—delivered a final speech just before he died in 2018. In the video, Hawking talks about the importance of science and reason in...

The best celebrity cameos on 'The Simpsons'

As the show became a pop culture sensation in the late '80s, it began attracting celebrities eager to get in on the fun. This list ranks some of the best of those appearances, including Meryl Streep, Paul McCartney, and Dustin Hoffman.

Watch Hank Azaria perform classic sports rants as 'Simpsons' characters

The actor has voiced some of the show's most beloved characters, including Moe Szyslak and Chief Wiggum. In 2025, he joined "The Rich Eisen Show" and used those voices to reimagine some of the sport's world's most ridiculous speeches.

English cosmologist Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) jokes about alien sightings

"I am discounting the reports of UFOs. Why would they appear to only cranks and weirdos?"

The sophisticated math jokes of 'The Simpsons'

"The Simpsons" has always been a slyly sophisticated show and has featured more than a few references to complex mathematical concepts. That's largely due to its writers' room, which has featured more than one writer who studied math before transitioning to comedy.

Bill Nye received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2025

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce awarded its 2,821st star to Nye for his "dedication in making science accessible and entertaining for all ages through his iconic educational show." Former "Almost Live!" colleagues Joel McHale and Ross Shafer spoke in Nye's honor during the ceremony.

No one showed up to the party for time travelers organized by Stephen Hawking

In 2009, Hawking hosted a reception but only sent out invitations afterward, hoping that time travelers from the future would attend and prove time travel possible. He later joked it was "experimental evidence" that time travel doesn’t exist.

One actor made a career out of playing Mark Twain

Hal Holbrook toured in the one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight!” for over six decades. In the performances, Holbrook wore Twain’s iconic white suit and offered witticisms similar to Twain’s famous lectures. Holbrook won a Tony Award in 1966 for a Broadway run of the show.

Read about the nine depictions of Nikola Tesla in media through 2020

Portrayals include comedic takes, like John C. Reilly's performance in Comedy Central's "Drunk History" series, and more serious interpretations, like Nicholas Hoult's performance in Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s historical drama, "The Current War."

'Pioneering is never done in front of cheerleaders urging on a roaring grandstand of popular approval.'

- "Star Trek" actor George Takei (1937-present)

Steve Martin and Robin Williams once starred in 'Waiting for Godot'

The duo starred as Vladimir and Estragon, respectively, in a 1988 production of Samuel Beckett's play. Since then, the show has become an opportunity for other famous duos to engage with the theater of the absurd, including Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen (in 2009, and then again from 2013 to 2014) and Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves (from 2025 to 2026). The only complete recording of a Williams and Martin production is available for researchers at The New York Public Library, though you can watch a few scenes below.

Hitchcock regularly made cameos in his own films

Long before Tarantino was born, Hitchcock was casting himself in his movies’ bit parts, allowing careful audience members to find the director walking through the fictional world he’d created. The history behind that decision was an accident.

Before it was a popular book, 'A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' began as a radio series

The science-fiction comedy began as a radio play on BBC Radio 4, broadcast between 1978 and 1980. The first novel appeared in 1979; two years later, it was adapted for television.

Satirists sometimes use ironic personas

Satirists often embody a character to mock the kind of person who would believe what they argue are ridiculous ideas. One famous example was Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report,” who satirized right-wing pundits like Bill O’Reilly through a bombastic persona. When O’Reilly asked whether that meant he was owed money, Colbert responded with more satire: “There’s a difference between imitation and emulation … If you imitate someone, you owe them a royalty check. If you emulate them, you don’t.”

Conan's 2000 commencement speech offers comfort and humor to young Harvard graduates

In the spring of 2000, famous late-night talk show host and comedian Conan O'Brien gave a hilarious, thoughtful speech to the graduating class at Harvard, where he graduated from in 1985. He warns that once adult life begins, any stupid mistakes made by a Harvard grad will be severely mocked. He also recounts his post-grad failures and how important they were in his success. The speech has been noted ever since as a classic example of both wisdom and foolishness.

See an analysis of the similarities between the characters in 'Silicon Valley' and the real people who inspired them

The HBO show "Silicon Valley" follows the story of an engineer who is trying to get his startup to take off in Silicon Valley. While one tech CEO said the show is like a documentary, many speculate the show is based on real life tech figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel.

Existential dread still informs popular comedies

Although the Theater of the Absurd was primarily a 20th-century trend, a similar kind of existentialist-minded comedy still exists in popular culture. Films like “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and television shows like “BoJack Horseman” tackle the same issues that existentialist thinkers like Sartre, Beauvoir, and Camus explored, transforming those profound questions into thought-provoking and crowd-pleasing works of comedy.

Dozens of common phrases are attributed to Shakespeare

His clever wordsmithery infiltrated English, from “Neither rhyme nor reason” to “In my heart of hearts.” This article lists nearly two dozen of his best-known phrases.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Hear Carl Sagan reflect on the smallness of humanity

Drew Scanlon is the man behind the Blinking White Guy meme

A San Francisco resident, Scanlon now works as a video producer for Twitch and hosts a pair of podcasts about Formula One and iconic movies. He also now using his fame to raise money for an MS charity.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.