Well, what can you say? He went toe-to-toe with Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr and came up with the nomenclature 'black hole.' It had to be an interesting time. Physics still had worlds to conquer and he helped do it. There are some who decry the Manhattan Project, for example, because it's impossible to clarify how many lives were saved using an atomic bombs but we have an idea how many were killed. Term "black hole" - 1967. Science fiction writers have thanked him since. Obviously, the NY Times does a better obituary than I ever could, but nobody reads that thing. So let's put it in perspective. Is there any physics student who has not read “Gravitation”? I bet not. Good luck finding that kind of penetration for anyone else in the field.