He probably had hundreds of assistants that solved how Hawking radiation existited but they just named it after him because he's a disabled prick
I know this is a meme-joke, but science is inherently uber-stratified. Most principal investigators don't actually do lab work because they're busy charting the big-picture stuff, applying for grants, and submitting papers. The hands-on stuff is done mainly by graduate students and post-docs, sometimes undergrads too depending on the lab.