Although the physics of art is a subject close to my heart, it has been largely overlooked by the academic community. Fortunately, there are some notable exceptions. An example of such an article is “The Physics of Art” a wonderful paper written by Professor Richard Taylor at the University of Oregon.

I thought I could contribute something to this field with a blog about the physics behind some of the most famous paintings in history. This will be somewhat tongue-in-cheek and I hope that people who know more than me will correct or add to these posts.

I’m a theoretical physicist and life-long artist. I love creating art that incorporates science and math, such as fractal art, as well as illustrating ideas in my science books.

I’ve worked on projects with world-renowned artists, musicians, dancers, magicians and filmmakers, including Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai, Jamie Bernstein’s film “Particle Fever”, Peter Gabriel’s album “Scratch My Back”, the one-act ballet “The Theory of the Leisure Class” by Mark Morris to the music of Steve Reich, and many more.

**I received my Bachelors in Physics from Harvard University in 1992 and my Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1997. I have also studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (in Paris) and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (in New York).**

You are probably familiar with the famous “Blue Marble” photo of Earth taken by Apollo 17. But did you know that the picture was not taken by a photographer? It was actually created by a physicist and an astronaut.

Walt Cunningham, a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 7, Apollo 9, and Apollo 14 missions, had access to a state-of-the-art camera on board the spacecraft called a mapping camera. The camera allowed him to take photos of Earth from space. He took the first Blue Marble photo in 1972 when he was on board Apollo 17 as it returned from the moon.

Taken in 1972 from 35,800 kilometers away, the photo shows Africa, Europe and Asia. The Mediterranean Sea is visible as a thin blue line separating Europe from Africa. The Arabian Peninsula is also clearly visible being just south of the Mediterranean Sea. Australia is just right of center in this image with Antarctica being visible to its left. Also visible are clouds above North America some of which are dissipating as they travel northward over Canada.

||The Blue Marble is one of my favorite photos taken from space because it shows an image of Earth that no human has ever seen before: an image of our world as seen from deep space without any clouds or

The Romans’ knowledge of the aqueduct system was lost by the 15th century for any number of reasons, including the fact that many of their aqueducts had fallen into disrepair. But even before then, the Romans themselves had lost track of some parts of their system. By the time Pliny the Elder was writing his Natural History around AD 77, he was unable to locate a number of the water sources for Rome’s longest aqueduct, including its original spring in a town called Aqua Claudia.

The poet Martial recounts in one poem that he had ridden along a stretch of Rome’s famed Aqua Claudia and seen no sign at all of its spring source. He wrote: “I saw no grassy hillside, no clear spring; though I traveled its whole length, I could not find where it came from.”

The project was started by CERN physicist Simon Norfolk. He has been working on it for almost 20 years, and in 2010 he released a book of the same name, which is where I learned about him. He has collaborated with a number of artists, but this is my favorite work by far.

The book contains several other projects that are also really fascinating. I don’t know why the people at CERN haven’t put up a page that links to all of them, but you can see them here .

I can’t say enough good things about this project. It’s fascinating, beautiful, and probably one of the best ways to get your hands dirty with some actual science that most people will never do. And you can watch it evolve as more collaborations happen!

Brian Greene, the theoretical physicist and best-selling author, is a guy who likes to think big. But, when it comes to his new book, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos (Knopf), he may have outdone himself.

“I began thinking about parallel universes 20 years ago,” Greene says, explaining that this was before the concept had really taken off in science fiction and pop culture. “But over time I became more and more intrigued—both by the idea that there could be other universes out there and by the idea that our visible universe may not be all there is.”

So what does one do with such thoughts? Why write a book about them, of course—and not just any book but one which attempts to describe 10^500 different universes—that’s a 1 followed by 500 zeroes! “What I’m trying to do,” says Greene, “is convey how much of an adventure modern physics has become.” And any adventure worth having entails risk.