Stephen Hawking is getting a 3 metre high statue of himself cast in bronze. The $250,000 statue will be placed near his his Centre for Theoretical Cosmology office, reports say.

“The giant monument in Cambridge will depict the physics genius in his wheelchair upon a vortex and rising out of a mist of water, surrounded by a ‘black hole’,” says Cambridge News. A scale model has already been constructed by sculptor Eve Shepherd (model picture here and here).

Shepherd says the work will show the “power of Professor Hawking’s mind and the fragility of his body”.

“There’s so much personality and energy inside Stephen’s mind but it is difficult to show that in a sculpture because his body doesn’t reflect it,” she says (Cambridge News). “However I didn’t want to ignore his disability, and Stephen agreed with that.”

Of course this is not the first statue of Hawking to grace Cambridge. A bust of him was unveiled last year. Can any other living scientist boast two statues of himself?