Skip to content

This Stephen Hawking tribute coin is dizzyingly beautiful

"Hey, let's make a new coin for Stephen Hawking that honours his life by portraying the beauty of a black hole that can be carried around in someone's

Seamus Byrne
Seamus Byrne
1 min read
This Stephen Hawking tribute coin is dizzyingly beautiful

"Hey, let's make a new coin for Stephen Hawking that honours his life by portraying the beauty of a black hole that can be carried around in someone's pocket." Someone kinda said that and actually pulled it off. It's gorgeous!

The designer, Edwina Ellis, didn't say the above. I made that bit up. What she said is far more elegant.

“Stephen Hawking made difficult subjects accessible, engaging, and relatable, and this is what I wanted to portray in my design, which is inspired by a lecture he gave in Chile in 2008.”

“Hawking, at his playful best, invites the audience to contemplate peering into a black hole before diving in. I wanted to fit a big black hole on the tiny coin and wish he was still here chortling at the thought.”

Even more exciting? We're going to get coins that speak to the awesome work of other famous British scientists – Newton and Darwin. What will they come up with for those two?

Get it from the British Royal Mint while you can.

I'm not really sure they'll be as cool as this one. But I'll be more than impressed if they do.

Spotted via Technabob.

Big IdeasCulture

Seamus Byrne

Founder and Head of Content at Byteside. Brings two decades of experience covering tech, digital culture, and their impacts on society.


Related Posts

PAX Australia cosplay competition entries are open

Anyone can turn up in a costume. But competitors need to apply soon!

Explorer: Juicy tech reads to catch you up on 2025 so far

Tech is in a dark place. These stories might help grapple with what's happening.

A book shows a spread of leafed out pages brightly lit with sunlight on a steep angle. The background is blurred with trees and nature and a blue sky.

Blunt instruments won't solve the social media challenge

Parents are absent from the picture as politicians skip science to enact bad laws that create some nice feelings but do nothing to solve real problems.

A person, face out of frame, is clutching their smartphone as they look toward its screen and type.