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Stephen Hawking’s mysterious blackboard doodles revealed – can you work what this bearded alien means?

A MYSTERIOUS blackboard belonging to Stephen Hawking is now on public display.

It’s part of a new exhibition that aims to uncover the secrets behind the many doodles on the blackboard that Hawking kept for 35 years.

Isidora Bojovic/Science Museum GroupHawking made sure the blackboard remained exactly the same for 35 years[/caption]

GettyHawking liked the blackboard so much he kept it after a conference[/caption]

Hawking’s blackboard dates back to 1980.

It’s full of drawings, equations and in-jokes scrawled by Hawking’s friends and fellow physicists.

The doodles were drawn at a conference on superspace and supergravity at the University of Cambridge.

It’s thought the blackboard was used as a distraction while Hawking and his colleagues tried to work out the “theory of everything”.

Hawking liked the blackboard so much it was sprayed with varnish and hung in his office.

The blackboard is now on display at the Science Museum in London as part of a wider Hawking exhibition.


The museum is planning to welcome friends of the genius and other physicists to see if they can reveal what the blackboard doodles mean.

Some of the more mysterious drawings include a bearded alien, a big nosed squid trying to climb a wall, a sea monster and the phrase “stupor symmetry”.

There’s also a tin can drawing with the words “Exxon supergravity?” written across it.

Hawking died in 2018 at the age of 76-years-old without spreading much light on the mystery of the blackboard.

The blackboard is just one of 16 items that will be on display at the exhibition dedicated to his life.

The other artifacts include the scientist’s glasses, wheelchair and a copy of his PhD thesis.

The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum / Isidora BojovicThe ‘sea monster’ can be seen in the top left and the ‘bearded alien’ is towards the lower right[/caption]

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