Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/04/14/art-donovan-event-horizon.html
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Isn’t a black hole kind of the opposite of a lamp?
Cool, but will it work with my blacklight wall posters?
I truly wish that lamp sculptors would start using smokey or frosted glass in their lamps.
There’s all these aesthetically interesting designs that burn hot white points in my eyeballs and it’s as enjoyable as a flashlight in your face.
Yes! But… ( Damned if I can’t think of a clever retort)
Well, it’s about time someone finally said it!
Here, if you’ll notice, the front and back of the globe has brass disks which shield the bulb glare. But many of my designs of the last 12 years do indeed have bare or partially shaded bulbs. These pieces then have a full range, rotary dimmers and very often an additional bulb (MR-11’s) hidden somewhere in the design. The bulbs point up and back toward a wall and provide a nice, diffused ambient light. This is what I did for the pendants in my Masonic Lodge
It’s a fun and beautiful piece. I hope it gets snatched up by someone who appreciates nice things.
Thank you! You are most kind
Per astrophysicists… no. Matter being pulled into a black hole glows, visible as an accretion disk (spinning orbit-like around and into the black hole) or as a surrounding spherical envelope or shell.
So the lamp is good to go.
Absolutely gorgeous. But if there is no listed price, you know you cannot afford it.
The accretion disk, if it exists (not all black holes have one) is not the black hole. If this was called an accretion disk lamp, that’d be fine. But it’s billed as being inspired by black holes and their event horizons. The event horizon, which is what supposedly inspired the lamp, is the boundary of a black hole, the edge from which light can no longer escape - it is literally as black as can be.
So - you would not be able to see a lamp which mimicked a black hole - there would be no light coming from the lamp’s location.
But the facts run counter to popular culture. And it’s a popular culture lamp, not an accurate description lamp. So lots of people will be just fine with thinking that light comes out of a black hole. They believe in the Virgin Birth and that space aliens walk among us and that the earth is flat, too. No problem.
Per his website (which shows many other interesting lamps), you have to contact him for pricing; these are handmade to order.
My criteria for an expensive lamp (such as Donovan’s): When used to whack a person upside the head, it must leave an incredibly elaborate and unidentifiable bruise.
Hello.
Firstly: Who is your “accretion disk… is not the black hole” message meant for?. Note my post’s “around” and “surrounding”, and nothing about the BH itself glowing.
Secondly: Please control yourself. It’s just a lamp, not a science project
How does one put a price on a black hole?
Easy, with a price sticker. See… oops, it’s gone, oops, that one too, oops, where’d that one go, oops, it was just here…
Oh but aren’t they full of light? It’s just light that’s never going to get from A to our B, isn’t it? It’s “black” to us outside of it, but…? Hmm, I don’t know.
In this point and shoot era, it is refreshing to see some careful studio lighting for handmade items.
See now, I was invited to join the Masons once, and the lodge looked nothing like that! (It was a very small lodge, mostly a bunch of old farts who hadn’t done as well as they hoped in life even with membership, and sat around comparing symptoms of their lumbago and bickering about Masonic protocols. I was sorely disappointed.)
Judging purely by the architecture and wonderfully designed and executed lighting, I feel sure your lodge is well-populated by the sorts of high-minded folks that come to mind for most people when they hear the word “Mason”.
Might also X-ray your neighbors.
Oddly, when I hear the term, “Masonic” what springs to my mind is very much what your found at your local lodge.
I was wondering about those beams of charged particles detected coming from Pulsars; do they accelerate molecules of space dust, producing something like a cosmic sand blaster?