Inspired by science, the Black Hole Paperweight is made by Glass Eye Studio in Seattle. Click on image for more information.
Working in an Italian lab, a group of physicists have created what they are calling a “desktop black hole,” by shooting intense pulses of laser through a piece of glass so quickly, it interferes with the transmission of the light through the glass. Some of the light particles are trapped by the disturbed refraction through the glass in a similar way to how a black hole would trap particles in gravity. Stephen Hawking has calculated that a black hole would actually radiate particles, rather than simply swallowing everything in its path as some of the trapped energy escapes through a form of radiation. The recent experiment with laser light and glass confirmed the theoretical existence of “Hawking radiation” by creating this analogous black hole. By pointing an ultra sensitive camera at it, researchers were able to record the faint glow where the trapped light particles were radiating out in a new form.
This experiment accomplished using glass is the first scientific evidence of Hawking radiation and may perhaps be enough to convince Sweden’s Royal Academy of Science to consider Dr. Stephen Hawking the Nobel prize which has so far eluded him, due in part to a lack of scientific experiments proving his theories.
You can read more about this discovery in an article at the science blog IO9 as well as articles in Wired and the Economist.
—Kim Harty