The art of physics

Sukant Saran would like you to know right off the bat that his pieces of art are not diagrams The clay sculptures do not represent scientific concepts it is not how he envisions them They are conceptual melding of art and the laws of physicsFor instance the story about Isaac Newton discovering gravity after an apple falls on his head is just that a story ldquoNewtonrsquos great contribution to science howeverrdquo says the physicist ldquowas the observation that the force that made the apple fall from a tree was also responsible for keeping the moon in its orbit around the Earth He connected the celestial and the terrestrial in his Theory of Gravitationrdquo Saranrsquos massive clay apple is pockmarked with lunar craters to represent this connection that Newton made That there are vacuums in the universe is another myth he bustedWith craters on the fruitrsquos surface Newtonrsquos Apple posits that the moon and the apple have the same status in Newtonrsquos theory of gravitationThe 59yearold works at TIFR Tata Institute of Fundamental Research which is parked at the end of Homi Bhabha Road in Colaba right next to the entrance of Old Navy Nagar Too few would go looking for art there never mind the security clearance And that is unfair ldquoMy colleagues have all seen the exhibition Sculpting Science An experiment in art and supported me but yes I donrsquot know how others will find their way here As it is there is a bit of mystery about what we do here at TIFRrdquoSaran is born of a journalist father and raised in Chandigarh amidst an environment rich with poets artists and artistes authors and other cultural elements of the day ldquoI have been drawing and painting since I was a child Initially I was engaged in creating abstract pen art and then moved to digital art in 2000rdquo says the scientist Along the way he realised that he was thinking in three dimensions and then translating it into twodimensional artIn quantum mechanics particles are waves and waves are particles This sculpture shows particles coalescing to make waves and waves are becoming localised particlesSculpting seemed a more appropriate form At first he would play around with different types of clay took some basic pottery classes and it became his chosen medium A few experiments in he realised that his hand was being informed by science and the sculptures grew into concepts about subatomic particles particles as waves along the axis of time physical processes such as evaporation ductility and malleability at the subatomic particle level history and symbolism the apple comes here as well as an ldquoaccurate depiction of a treerdquoldquoTraditionally the tree is depicted only by what we see above groundrdquo he says ldquobut the tree as an organism is spread as much below ground as the branches are above it I have modified the usual traditional symbol to show that this should be the actual drawing of a tree as informed by sciencerdquo The secondary intent is to emphasise that unseen processes are as important as those seenEmbryo day 18 shows the division and differentiation of cells as a foetus develops in the womb The repeated folding unfolding stretching and contraction of two interacting layers forms all elements of a developed human bodyMore sculptures are grouped into Duality Order Disorder Wave Particle MatterAntimatter and Interaction mathematical forms shown through abstract representations of Surfacing Saddle and Idealisation For instance the Earth does not have a smooth surfacemdashthere are mountains and trenches oceans overlapping or colliding tectonic plates But for the sake of calculation we assume it to be a smooth globe With this Saran tries to make the point that science is an abstract representation of nature just like a poem or paintingldquoDualities such as mindbody or goodbad are enmeshed in our daily routine in a way that our lives are governed by them Wherever you look whatever you do some duality is part of our life Science also has dualities and I have tried to depict some of them Sometimes they appear as mathematical abstractions and sometimes as manifestations in the physical environmentrdquo he explains One sculpture shows ldquoorder merging seamlessly into disorderrdquo ldquoThough this is a scientific concept it can be applied to any situationrdquoldquoYou have heard of the Moumlbius looprdquo he asks walking to the next sculpture We nod dishonestly Itrsquos the surface formed by attaching the ends of a strip of paper together with a halftwist we find out later ldquoI have just used the concept of half turn If there is a protrusion on one side with half turn it becomes a depression There is no actual theory that uses Moumlbius strip as a mechanism for pair productionrdquoOne of the last two groups is Biological forms that show scienceart interaction Multicellular lifecausing mitochondria the segmentation seen in an earthworm or the bark of a date palm being mimicked by an embryo as it grows and representations of 18day and 28day embryos The last group is Space and Time seen in physics as one entity Twenty four of the 80 pieces he has created are on display until June 10No amount of watching Dr Who or Big Bang Theory prepares you for a conversation with a physicist certainly not one about abstract art This writer asked him to explain the pieces as if he was addressing a sixyearold and a round about the room stretches the imagination Especially if one sat immobile through physics period eye glazed over Try understanding this ldquoAs per quantum mechanics waves are particles and particles are wavesrdquoThe abstract depiction of spacetime or waveparticle duality along the axis of time may need a more specific kind of mind there is no denying the beauty of each sculpture Strips of clay meld into each other to depict an expanding universe with the galaxies going further and further away from each other Itrsquos a complex and chaotic piece one that draws you in The biological forms and physical processes evaporation ductility malleability and expansion are much easier to wrap onersquos head aroundIt was his peculiar position in space and time that guided Saranrsquos education as well as societal conditioning ldquoI was good at studies and thus considered to be intelligent and routed to sciencerdquo he says ldquoIf you see this in a wider perspective it is a very stupid way of thinking Both disciplines are harmed by this there is no interplay It cultivates a very rigid form of thinkingrdquo