Perception of the Extreme Unseen: Visual Logistics and Representation of Subatomic Particle Energy and Matter

By Jan-Henrik Andersen

School of Art & Design, Slusser Gallery, 2000 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor. Through March 13.

Jan-Henrik Andersen, an assistant professor of interior design, is determined to “lift the veil on the optically impossible task of visually observing subatomic particles” by translating their properties and behavior—known as the Standard Model of subatomic physics—into a “coherent 3-dimensional language.”

He hopes the “visual presence of the unseen will increase the general public's interest in and insight into the world of theoretical and experimental subatomic physics.”

“No one has seen, nor will anyone ever see, anything as small as a Quark or Neutron,” Andersen concedes, “so one could argue that they could look like anything.”

But by collaborating with U-M physicists Gordon Kane and David Gerdes, Andersen has created visual models of the menagerie of subatomic particles—Leptons, Bosons, Gravitons as well as the Quark, Neutrino and others—that correspond as closely as possible with their theoretical properties, as derived from particle physics.

These properties include spin, mass, charge and color. And also “group properties” such as symmetries and anti-particles.

Andersen used computer-modeling software called nonlinear uniform b-splines to generate the graphic models of shimmering color and dynamic beauty.

“Over the course of the last year and a half, he and the physicists “modeled, rendered, discussed and approved or discarded thousands of iterations” before settling the exhibited pieces, Andersen says.

The final models were placed in a 3-axis Cartesian grid according to experimental data sets generated by collision events of subatomic particles in the FermiLab in Illinois. Andersen intends to create representations in permanent materials such as carbon fiber.

Blue top quark (size 10 -25 millimeter) in interactions with Higgs boson (the Fresnel lens like ribs).

Andersen