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The Leiden jars pay homage to the location where the painting hangs, the Lorentz Institute, which is located in Leiden. The yellow swirls above the brass wiring charges the viewer’s attention. This yellowish region is inspired by swirling galaxies with Van Gogh flair. The green ball above the jars is the end of a pendulum. Many problems in physics reduce to solving harmonic oscillator equations.
The cypress tree recalls Van Gogh’s painting Starry Night, where the cypress tree acts as a mediator between reality and the stars dancing above. Hence, I thought it befitting that this cypress tree be in the painting, as like in science, we are the mediators, stretching to that which is beyond our reach to the stars above.<br>
This sunset looking region is an accelerating electron in disguise. Notice the contracted beams and the equation for a Lorentz contraction above.
A diagram of an interferometer with an observer positioned to view the out-going light beam.
With the exception of the color purple, which is lightened to make its color visible, the array of rainbow colors is applied unadulterated from the paint tube. The colors coalesce in the creation of the tree and are mixed by the image of the paint brush. This section is the “Island of Creativity” or after talking with some string theorists, “Really Thick Cosmic Strings” with bubbles of forming universes.
A Salvador Dali type clock hangs from a purple tree. Clouds are in the background. On occasion people accuse scientists’ heads of being up in the clouds. But I like to think they’re even higher up thinking about distant galaxies far away or even in different dimensions.
Dendrite with an eye in the center. Dendrites conduct electrical stimulation received from other cells to and from the cell body.
Black and white checkered tube with a stream of water at one end.
An electron orbiting a nucleus under the influence of a magnetic field.