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While learning black-hole stuff is not on top of Ciro Santilli's priorities, Hawking's spirit is to be admired.
To never give up even when everything seems lost, and still have a sense of humour is respectable.
An ex-physicist colleague who had met Hawking told an anecdote. Hawking was around in the department one day, they said hi and all. But then Hawking wanted to tell a joke. It took like 5 minutes of typing, and you can imagine that things were pretty awkward and the joke's timing was "a bit off". But Hawking did tell the joke nonetheless.
This is also suggested in the The Theory of Everything (2014) film, and therefore likely the biographies.