Art of Science Online Gallery Launches with Energy Theme 

Miracles of Modern Science played its world premiere of “Art of Science” at a night concert May 7 with Princeton University Art of Science images rotating behind the orchestral rock band. Pictured here behind MOMS is an image called “Stirring Faces” by Steve Brunton, a graduate student in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton. The “faces” in Brunton’s image show the mixing that takes place when a flat plate moves up and down in an otherwise still fluid. Each face represents the fluid flow field at a different point in time. As the fluid mixes, the facial expressions become more elaborate. Courtesy of Henry S. Horn

Princeton University’s fourth “Art of Science” exhibition, featuring beautiful or otherwise interesting images created during the course of scientific research, is now viewable online. The theme of this year’s exhibit is “energy,” broadly defined.

“Since its inception in 2005, the Art of Science Competition has offered breathtaking pictures, surprise and a new lens for scientific imagination,” said Adam Finkelstein, associate professor of computer science and a co-organizer of the competition. “This year’s exhibition comprises the strongest, most compelling imagery yet.”

The physical 2010 Art of Science exhibit opened May 7, 2010, with a reception in the main hall of the Friend Center on the Princeton campus and an outdoor concert by the orchestral rock band Miracles of Modern Science (MOMS), which performed the world premiere of their new song “Art of Science” as images from Princeton’s past four Art of Science exhibits flashed behind in the night sky on a giant screen.

• First place went to “Xenon Plasma Accelerator” by Jerry Ross, a postdoctoral researcher at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

• Second place went to “Therapeutic Illumination” by David Nagib, a graduate student in chemistry at Princeton University.

• Third place went to “Neutron Star Scattering off a Super Massive Black Hole” by Tim Koby, an undergraduate majoring in physics at Princeton.

Jurors for the competition were President Shirley M. Tilghman; Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin, Phillip Y. Goldman ’86 Professor in Computer Science; Paul Muldoon, Howard G.B. Clark ’21 University Professor in the Humanities, director of the Princeton Atelier, and chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts; the photographer Emmet Gowin; and James Steward, director of the Princeton University Art Museum.

After this year’s judging, Muldoon observed that with each new Art of Science exhibit “we’re reminded, yet again, that art is less about the imposition of patterns on the world than an openness to the patterns the world imposes on us.”

Cash prizes went to the top three winners of the competition: $250 for first place, $154.51 for second; and $95.49 for third. These amounts are derived according to the golden ratio, a mathematical proportion that has been found in aesthetically pleasing designs, from seashells to ancient Greek temples.

The glowing plume we see in this photo is generated by a Hall-effect thruster — an electric propulsion technology that uses magnetic and electric fields to ionize and accelerate a propellant (in this case xenon) to produce thrust. These devices are used for a variety of space craft applications such as satellite stabilization. Courtesy of Jerry Ross, an associate researcher at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, courtesy of Princeton University Art of Science Competition.

Co-organizer Andrew Zwicker, who is the head of Science Education at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and a lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program, said that the competition brings artists and scientists together in new and important ways.

“For a long time, science has informed art, providing new tools, new technology and new inspiration,” he said. “The interesting question raised by this competition is whether finding the beauty in a scientific image changes how that image is viewed scientifically — it may well be that the aesthetics on occasion inform the science.”

The “Art of Science” organizers sought images that came directly from research in science and engineering. Princeton undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, research staff, community affiliates and alumni submitted microscopic images, photographs taken for purposes of field research and images generated by computer simulations, among other entries.

Art of Science 2010 was sponsored by the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment, the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton’s Office of the Dean for Research, the Princeton Art Museum, the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton, and the David A. Gardner ’69 Fund of the Princeton Humanities Council.

Art of Science 2010 Gallery: http://www.princeton.edu/artofscience

View a slideshow of the 2010 exhibit images, set to the MOMS composition “Art of Science”: http://vimeo.com/11720108

Prints of images will remain on display in the Friend Center for one year; the gallery is open from 9 a.m. To 7 p.m., Monday through Friday.