What is "Exxon gravity," and why was it on the legendary physicist's chalkboard?
The
secrets behind the doodling, in-jokes, and coded messages on a chalkboard that
famed physicist Stephen Hawking left untouched for more than 35 years are the
subject of a new museum display.
According
to The Guardian, the blackboard dates from 1980, when Hawking attended a
seminar on superspace and supergravity at the University of Cambridge in the
United Kingdom. Hawking's colleagues used the blackboard as a welcome
distraction while attempting to come up with a cosmological "theory of
everything" — a set of equations that would combine the rules of general
relativity and quantum mechanics — by filling it with a mishmash of
half-finished equations, perplexing puns, and incomprehensible doodles.
Still
preserved more than 40 years later, the befuddling blackboard has just gone on
public display for the first time ever as the centerpiece of a new exhibition
on Hawking's office, which opened Feb. 10 at the Science Museum of London. The
museum will welcome physicists and friends of Hawking — who died in 2018 at the
age of 76 — from around the world in hopes that they may be able to decipher
some of the hand-scrawled doodles.
What, for
example, does "stupor symmetry" mean? Who is the shaggy-bearded
Martian drawn large at the blackboard's center? Why is there a floppy-nosed
squid climbing over a brick wall? What is hiding inside the tin can labeled
"Exxon supergravity?" Hopefully, the world's great minds of math and
physics can rise to the occasion with answers.
The
blackboard joins dozens of other Hawking artifacts on display, including a copy
of the physicist's 1966 Ph.D. thesis on the expansion of the universe, his
wheelchair and a personalized jacket given to him by the creators of "The
Simpsons" to honor his multiple appearances on the show. The exhibit will
run until June 12 at the Science Museum in London, before hitting the road with
stops at several other museums in the U.K., according to The Guardian.
Hawking
was born on January 8, 1942, in England. In 1963, he was diagnosed with motor
neuron disease, often known as Lou Gehrig's illness or amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis, while studying cosmology at the University of Cambridge (ALS).
Hawking, who was only 21 years old at the time, was only expected to live for
two more years. He lived and worked for over five decades, releasing
groundbreaking research on black holes, the Big Bang theory, and general
relativity.
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