Symmetry in Chaos

Year: 
2017
Ranking: 
Honorable Mention
Artist: 
Humberto Foronda (Graduate Student)
Department: 
Materials
Lab: 
James Speck and Steven DenBaars

Description

These pipes carry gas into a high temperature chamber, where it will transition into a solid and form a single crystal. The orderly pipes mimic the result, as the single crystal exhibits strict symmetry. This process is chaotic and not well understood, embodied in the elegant pandemonium of cables.

This photograph depicts a struggle between order and chaos. The rigid and structured pipelines resemble a cage, containing the tumultuous cables, mimicking the turbulent gas flow within the chamber.  At the end of the process they combine to form an unlikely symmetry and balance, the creation of a single crystal.

 

CSEPSchuller LabCNSIUCSBMOXI