Some 100 feet below the ocean's surface, Stephen Hawking peeked through the circular porthole of a submarine and saw the brilliant blue tropical water.
It was March 2006, and the famous astrophysicist, accompanied by one of his ever-present nurses, sat strapped in his wheelchair, enjoying the view of coral reefs and colorful fish off the coast of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
It was his first undersea experience, and he had Jeffrey Epstein to thank for it.
The submarine ride capped a nearly weeklong gathering funded by Epstein. It brought together around 20 of the world's top physicists, including three Nobel laureates and three more who would later receive the prestigious prize.
The "Confronting Gravity" conference was billed as a chance to discuss key issues in fundamental physics and cosmology, and described as a place where participants could "meet, discuss, relax on the beach, and take a trip to the nearby private island retreat of the science philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein."
"It was an excellent conference," said Alan Guth, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who attended the event. In fact, Epstein would go on to describe it as one of his top five professional achievements.
Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, then with Case Western Reserve University, organized the event. He maintained an almost 15-year friendship with Epstein and later retired from Arizona State University in 2019 amid multiple sexual misconduct allegations against him. At ASU, he ran the Origins Project, which was partially funded by Epstein. Krauss has previously denied the sexual misconduct allegations.
The 2006 Virgin Islands conference illustrates how Epstein used philanthropy to build relationships with scientists and academic institutions. NPR spoke to scientists and searched through the Department of Justice documents on Epstein to understand how he built his network of prominent scientists. Epstein's interests spanned fields including theoretical physics, evolutionary biology and computer science, and he funded conferences, research programs and individual scientists.
"Jeffrey was interested in interesting people," Krauss told NPR.
As in politics and the arts, the fallout from the infamous Epstein files has been equally dramatic at the top tiers of science. At Harvard University alone, George Church, a pioneer in human genomic research; physicist Lisa Randall; and Martin Nowak, a professor of mathematics and biology, have all come under intense scrutiny over their ties with Epstein. NPR reached out to all three for comment and received no reply.
Beyond Harvard, Richard Axel, a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist, stepped down from his post as co-director of Columbia University's Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and David Gelernter, a Yale University computer science professor, is suspended from teaching classes while the university reviews his conduct.
Even after Epstein's 2008 guilty plea deal for soliciting prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution, some scientists and academics continued to communicate with him or accept his support until years later, in some cases up to his 2019 arrest on sex-trafficking charges.
Physics and fun, with a capital "F"
Epstein had fond memories of Hawking's submarine ride.
In a 2017 text message chain, Epstein said, "when hawking came to my island. and said his dream was to go diving … i [duct-taped] his head to a high back chair and loaded him in a private sub, great fun."
But just getting the famous physicist into the submarine — chartered from a private tour company — proved a major challenge: A winch system was used to gently lower Hawking in his wheelchair down through the sub's main hatch. "They were willing to do whatever [was] necessary to get him on the sub," Krauss, the organizer of the conference, told NPR.
At the time, Krauss, the author of several popular books on science, donned his scuba gear and dove down to wave at Hawking through the submarine's window. "I was just so happy because he'd never been under water."
Months before, Krauss pitched the conference as "a small and rather exclusive workshop" with all expenses paid, according to an email from Krauss that Guth, the MIT physicist, shared with NPR. Krauss dropped the names of prominent invitees. One was Hawking, then perhaps the most famous living physicist. Others were David Gross and Frank Wilczek — who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics — Gerard 't Hooft, a 1999 Nobel laureate, and Kip Thorne, who would go on to win the prize in 2017.
"To get good people, you've got to have a hook," Krauss said.
And it worked. "It included many of the big names in cosmology and gravitational theory at the time," said Guth, the physicist who first proposed the theory of cosmic inflation, a concept that has become a pillar of modern cosmology.
Epstein's foundation funded the gathering, Krauss said. A 2006 article from the St. Thomas Source, a local news website, said the goal was to do nothing less than define gravity. "They say Newton discovered it but no one knows what it is," Epstein told the outlet, taking credit for bringing the group together.
"There is no agenda except fun and physics, and that's fun with a capital 'F,'" he added.
Except for the locale, the event seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, Guth said, adding that physics conferences are often held in places with good scenery. "It was, of course, a little more exotic, a little more colorful, a little more natural beauty than just sitting in a restaurant in a hotel," he said.
The physicists stayed at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton, St. Thomas and had dinners and lunches each day at the hotel. At the conference, there were several talks each day that delved into esoteric topics, such as gravitational wave physics, that would later dominate the field. A few scientists also held a public event at a local college.
Neither Guth nor Princeton University's Jim Peebles, who also attended, remembered Epstein as much of a presence.
"As far as I'm aware, although I was never thinking of it, Epstein was never … in my eyesight at any time during the conference," said Peebles, who would go on to receive the Nobel for physics in 2019.
Krauss said that makes sense for Epstein. "In groups, Jeffrey was very shy and quiet," he said. "He'd sit in the back. One-on-one, he liked to talk to people."
Then, there was the promised relaxation.
Along with the submarine, the scientists took a short boat ride for a barbecue picnic on Epstein's 70-acre island. Epstein had purchased Little St. James, or "Little St. Jeff's" as he liked to call it, in 1998. It is a place that prosecutors say was used by Epstein to sexually abuse women and girls. But the physicists who visited the island say they saw none of that during their short stay.
The boat dropped off the scientists at the beach. Peebles said he remembers being met at the island by someone he described as "a guide," who cautioned the physicists, "Don't go wandering off into the island."
The group had its picnic near the Caribbean Sea. Guth said some scientists went inside Epstein's house just to use the bathroom.
But if the idea was to keep Epstein's private life a secret, it wasn't entirely effective. There were hints.
Guth said that during the conference, Epstein "was around but was really quite inconspicuous. He did not act as a host. He acted as a bystander." However, "we probably never saw him without three or four young women," Guth said.
"I think we did kind of laugh about it," he said. "We thought it was rather odd."
Peebles attended the conference with his wife. He vividly recalls a coffee break between talks at the Ritz where he and others "noticed several young women, maybe five, maybe 10," who seemed out of place. "Several of us asked each other, 'What are they doing here?'"
"I can only tell you they were younger than the youngest women in our meeting," he told NPR. "Were they 15 or 30? I have no idea."
Speaking to NPR, Krauss said the young women were Hawking's nurses.
A photo making the rounds on social media depicts Hawking and two of his nurses, who are in bikinis. That photo was not taken at this 2006 conference, as reported by other outlets; instead, it was taken at The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes in April 2007, a spokesperson for the Hawking family said in an email to NPR.
"Any insinuation of inappropriate conduct on his part is wrong and far-fetched in the extreme," the spokesperson wrote.
The conference was only months before Epstein's arrest
Unbeknownst to the participants, at the time of the conference Epstein's legal troubles were already brewing back in Florida.
Police in Palm Beach, where Epstein owned a house, were wrapping up an investigation of him. Four months after the conference, he would be indicted on charges of soliciting prostitution and procuring a minor for prostitution — pleading guilty two years later, serving a less-than-13-month jail sentence and having to register as a sex offender.
Peter Woit, a senior lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at Columbia University, didn't attend the 2006 conference. His name appears twice in the Epstein files but only in passing — both times on emails that included a general list of scientists. There is no indication of any direct involvement, though he does know several people who were connected to Epstein.
In a recent post on his blog, Woit concluded: "Epstein used his mysteriously acquired wealth to pursue his two great interests in life: the sexual exploitation of young women and hanging out with celebrity scientists."
Even after his initial arrest and plea deal, people may not have known the extent of Epstein's misdeeds, Woit told NPR, but added that as a scientist, before taking a large donation, "you're going to do some basic research" and "you're going to quickly find out that this guy is a convicted pedophile and a felon. … They knew who they were dealing with."
Guth said Epstein's arrest, just a few months after the conference, came as a shock. "When we met him, he was certainly rich and powerful. And rich and powerful people don't get arrested very often."
Despite Epstein's arrest, he continued to fund scientists and their events.
In late 2010, for instance, Krauss was organizing another event with high-profile scientists in the Virgin Islands. Department of Justice (DOJ) documents suggest that several, including Guth and University of Chicago paleontologist Neil Shubin, were slated to attend an Origins Project board meeting, which was abruptly called off for unknown reasons after Epstein expressed disappointment with the way it was being organized.
Guth says he does not recall being invited to the meeting. In an email, Shubin — who was recently elected to become the next president of the National Academy of Sciences — told NPR that he joined the Origins board because it "sounded interdisciplinary and very focused on public engagement, both of which interested me." But after the 2010 meeting was canceled, he said, he never attended any other Origins events. Guth also said he never attended any other board meetings.
Evidence found in the DOJ files indicate that Epstein funded at least one other scientific conference, this one organized by Marvin Minsky, a mathematician considered to be a founding father of artificial intelligence. That 2011 conference addressed "future disasters that may arise in the face of growing populations, new technologies and new social network systems." Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre said she was asked to have sex with Minsky. Minsky died in 2016.
Scientists got money; Epstein got prestige
Having the wealth and influence to bring together the best minds likely bolstered the self-image of Epstein, who was himself a college dropout. In exchange, Epstein acted as a link between scientists and influential individuals in a position to advance their careers and make them money.
One way he accomplished this is through Edge.org, a nonprofit foundation and website that multiple scientists told NPR was funded by Epstein. It appears to have ceased publication in 2023.
While it was active, the site published articles by big names in science, such as Krauss and Wilczek, one of the Nobel laureates at the 2006 conference, as it purported to bring together "the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves."
However, scientists who spoke with NPR understood Edge.org primarily as a vehicle for its editor in chief, John Brockman, a literary agent with a gift for selling popular science. "He was very good at arranging large advances," according to Guth, who was one of his clients. Guth described Edge as a club for clients of Brockman, who referred to them as "Edgies."
NPR reached out to Brockman and got no response.
The Edge editor also acted as a conduit between Epstein and prominent scientists. Guth recalls Brockman arranging a meeting between him and Epstein to donate to Guth's projects. Guth said Epstein wasn't interested in funding his projects. Peebles said this was common, noting: "Epstein liked to promise far more than he ever delivered."
Woit says he was shopping around for agents for one of his books, and "in another universe, Brockman could have easily ended up being my agent."
"I would've been invited to parties with Jeffrey Epstein and possibly gone to them," Woit said, adding, "I'm very glad I don't live in that other universe."
Epstein as "philosopher king"
Woit said it is his sense that Epstein thought of himself as a "philosopher king" who liked to "share his brilliant ideas with these brilliant people and they would come and hang out with him."
In a 2012 email with someone whose name is redacted, Epstein wrote: "I fund quite a bit of brain research and have established an evolutionary dynamics institute at Harvard." In a text message chain with an unknown recipient in 2017, Epstein stated: "I funded the father of AI marvin minsky for 20 years. I know the subject well," referencing the late mathematician with whom Epstein had a close relationship.
In his limited contact with Epstein, Guth said, he came away with an impression of arrogance. "[He] thought that he understood everything but in fact did not understand very much at all."
A number of scientists who spoke to NPR echoed that assessment — that Epstein was eager to engage on the leading science topics of the day but had only a cursory understanding of them. Still, Woit concedes that "scientists love to have somebody who is willing to talk to them."
After Epstein's arrest, he leveraged those relationships to help rehabilitate his image. In one instance, in 2012, someone (whose name is redacted) sent Epstein an email informing him that they were "rehas[h]ing an article … on the gravity conference." The following month, a press release was issued promoting the 2006 "Confronting Gravity" conference, without mentioning that it took place six years previously.
Woit said it seemed to be an effort to keep alive the notion that Epstein was still relevant in the world of science. "After 2006 … it was clear there was a large component of his activities that was reputation laundering," he said.
Krauss, on the other hand, did have a close relationship with Epstein, who donated $250,000 to his Origins Project at Arizona State. When allegations of misconduct arose against Krauss at ASU, the physicist exchanged dozens of messages and emails with Epstein seeking advice on how to handle them. "This is your life and future. I would not be cavalier as you write," Epstein wrote in a text to Krauss about how he should respond.
At the end of one conversation, Krauss said: "Thanks for everything Jeffrey."
Krauss said he never saw the other side of Epstein. "Not once in that 15 years did he ever say, 'Hey, I've got a young woman … .' He wanted to talk about other things, and he wanted to help," he said.
Krauss said Epstein reached out to him when he got out of jail in 2009. Epstein told him that the "experience had changed his view of the world, and he no longer wanted to make money."
"He just wanted to support science," Krauss said. "'Well, that's just a wonderful thing,' I thought. That's what he told me, and I believed it."
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