Cosmic superhero Stephen Hawking never ceases to amaze his admirers. At the age of 72 he is the world’s most celebrated scientist and the ultimate symbol of triumph over adversity, as he celebrates five decades of intellectual achievement while living with motor neurone disease, which kills most patients within two or three years.

This week Professor Hawking enjoyed the limelight at the London premiere of the latest film about his life, The Theory of Everything, starring Eddie Redmayne. Last week he showed off a new communications system designed by Intel, which enables him to write and speak more efficiently — in his famous American android voice — by registering tiny movements of his cheek muscles.

At the same time Prof Hawking stirred up controversywith his views on artificial intelligence, which “could be a real danger in the not too distant future”, he told the Financial Times by email. “The risk is that computers develop intelligence and take over. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”