The popular men’s magazine Nuts has recently voted Gonville and Caius College fellow Stephen Hawking as its ‘Greatest Bloke of the Year’. The eminent astrophysicist beat more conventional candidates such as Frankie Boyle and Chris Moyles to the top spot in a poll of 12,000 British ‘lads’.

Nuts editor Dominic Smith said "We asked our readers to vote for the men they thought really set the standard in terms of exemplifying the very best of British. Stephen Hawking is an incredibly worthy winner, and I'm confident it was his work regarding gravitational singularities in the frame work of general relativity that tipped the balance in his favour.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, all three Top Gear presenters have made the list, as well as veteran wildlife presenter David Attenborough and Christ’s College alumnus Sasha Baron Cohen.

The magazine, which also features the headline “Boob Heaven in 2011”, has previously referred to Hawking as ‘our national genius’ and showcases a clip of a Ricky Gervais sketch about him on their website. However it has failed to report some of his more considerable achievements, leading to some surprise at the poll’s result. Hawking has been famed for his work on theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity and for his advocacy of popular science writing, believing that scientific theories should be made as accessible as possible.

Hawking responded to his win, "Thanks, Nuts. I'm pleased to hear that I'm Britain's favourite 'Nut'!" Other recent Nuts polls have selected ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ as the best Christmas song ever and Jeri Ryan from Star Trek Voyager as the ‘Sexiest Sci-Fi Babe’. In addition to his Nuts accolade, Hawking recently won the prestigious American Presidential Medal of Freedom.