The Canon · Folio One
Plate XXI of XXIX
General Relativity
Light can circle a black hole.
Night ground, a deep blue-black, on Canson Baryta Photographique, 310 gsm
The plate
Albert Einstein, Die Feldgleichungen der Gravitation · Berlin, 1915
By November 1915 Einstein had completed the theory he had sought for eight years: gravity is not a force but the curving of spacetime by matter and energy, and everything, even light, follows the curve. Weeks later Karl Schwarzschild, serving on the Russian front, solved it exactly for a single mass. Parallel rays pass a mass compact enough to trap them: the nearer a ray, the more it bends, until it circles or falls in. At the Sun’s edge the bend is 1.75 seconds of arc, double the Newtonian value.
Computed, not drawn: every mark on the plate comes from the mathematics or from real data, and the type is set from the same files that go to the printer.
Sizes and prices
| Size | Unframed | Framed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small30 × 42 cm | £50$85 | £140$185 | 297 × 416 mm |
| Medium50 × 70 cm | £110$165 | £350$465 | 500 × 700 mm |
| Large70 × 98 cm | £190$255 | £520$695 | 700 × 980 mm |
- Paper: Canson Baryta Photographique, 310 gsm, printed as a giclée by theprintspace.
- Printed in: London for the UK, Brooklyn for the US. Unframed prints travel rolled in a tube.
- Framed small: A3 (29.7 × 42 cm) frame, glazed with glass.
- Framed medium: 60 × 80 cm frame with a 5 cm window mount, glazed with 3 mm acrylic.
- Framed large: 70 × 100 cm frame, glazed with 3 mm acrylic.
- Frames: black, white or oak, solid wood, made in Germany. Each comes ready to hang.
- Edition: open, with a certificate. File version v1.