The American Wastebasket Corporation: Hawking’s Hat Returned: Black Holes Behave Like Strange Closets

The American Wastebasket Corporation is proud to announce the return of Stephen Hawking’s hat.

The American Wastebasket Corporation returned the hat to Professor Hawking in July of 2001, after retrieving it from a black hole earlier that year. However, the American Wastebasket Corporation agreed to keep the return of his hat under wraps until the British cosmologist deterimined the mathematical formula proving that said hat could, indeed, be returned.

This week Dr. Hawking announced he’s done the math: Things that fall into black holes can later be retrieved from them.

Needless to say, Dr. Hawking was initially upset by the return of his hat, since it meant his theory about the fate of matter engulfed by a black hole was incorrect. In fact, Dr. Hawking earlier speculated that black holes would be the portals to other galaxies. Instead, it seems, they act more like intergalactic attics.

The British cosmologist lost the hat in 1972 in a rare calculation accident that took place on the back of napkin. In the incident, his navy blue beret inexplicably left the pub where he was sitting and swept across a the event horizon of a distant and massive black hole, believed to be big enough to hold 1,000 solar systems and a great deal of haberdashery.

Due to the nature of black holes, which severely mangle anything drawn into them, Dr. Hawking’s hat was returned in the form of a small blue lizard in a delicate china teacup.

The American Wastebasket Corporation is proud of its achievements in science and continues to be so far ahead of others involved in scientific pursuits, we feel free to make fun of other researchers in our marketing material.

So, remember our motto: The Future — It’s Not Here Yet.