Accession No
3770
Brief Description
model of the gravitational field (potential) around a black hole, designed and commissioned by Stephen Hawking, maker unknown, English, 1978 (c)
Origin
England
Maker
Hawking, Stephen [designer and commissioner]
Class
physics; demonstration
Earliest Date
1975
Latest Date
1980
Inscription Date
Material
metal (steel, other metal); wood; paint; paper
Dimensions
height 180mm; breadth 330mm; length 330mm
Special Collection
Provenance
Purchased from Bonhams, Knightsbridge, London, 1990. Commissioned by Stephen Hawking for a Royal Society event in the late 1970s
Inscription
Description Notes
model of the gravitational field (potential) around a black hole, designed and commissioned by Stephen Hawking, English, c. 1978
Wooden base. Model held in place on four metal poles. Model is square metal painted white. Curves inwards and forms tube that distends downwards to wooden base, the metal is open and at its very base is a black ring.
Good condition, although there is some scratching. Repairs have been made with tipex or white paint.
References
Events
Description
The University of Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking spent much of the 1960s and 1970s working on the theory and mechanics of black holes. Hawking commissioned this model to demonstrate the gravitational attraction exerted by these supermassive regions of spacetime. The downward slope of the surface at any point is a measure of the gravitational attraction experienced by a body at that distance. As nothing, not even light, can escape from within the event horizon of a black hole, the model’s ‘well’ has no bottom.
26/03/2015
Created by: Joshua Nall on 26/03/2015
FM:40181
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