The game of “Telephone” among famous scientists does not start and stop with Newton and the apple that he never wrote about.

Check this out.

Bertrand Russell was born in 1872. In 1897 he would have been 25 years old. In 1897 he published a fellowship-winning thesis. It was entitled, “An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry.”

Read this.

Those words were published in 1897 (same year as Russell’s first book) by William James. (See highlighted parts.)

Now read this.

Those words were published by Stephen Hawking in 1988. (91 years after Russell was 25 years old and published his thesis; 91 years after James’ words were published.)

Sure. I grant you that it is possible that Russell gave lectures to little old ladies in 1897, despite his being 25 years old and having only published a thesis on geometry that no little old lady would ever be interested in (or aware of). But that only solves the lesser problem. How does “rock” become “turtle”?

Seriously.

Obviously the nature of the situation is Hawking placed the importance of “truth” well below standards when deciding how to open his best-ever-selling book (that is seriously flawed for more than this reason).

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This is why you need to read, and read, and read, and read, and read. The solution is more reading.