Blackboards were wiped after use: they were meant for immediate
communication, not for record. Even as they were being used, their
messages were continuously revised, erased and renewed. But when
Einstein went to Oxford in 1931, he was already an international
celebrity. After one of his lectures a blackboard was preserved and has
become a kind of relic. It is the most famous object at the Museum of
the History of Science in Oxford.
To mark the
centenary of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity in 2005, the Museum
commissioned a series of blackboards from scientists, artists and celebrities.
The result was an exhibition about science, art, celebrity and nostalgia as the
blackboard has all but vanished from meetings, classes and lectures. Einstein’s
blackboard is too fragile to bring to London but six others are displayed here
at the Summer Science Exhibition.
Dr Jim Bennett, Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford
Blackboard by Lord Rees of Ludlow, President of the Royal Society