Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2017
Volume 62, Number 4
Monday–Friday, March 13–17, 2017; New Orleans, Louisiana
Session L22: Physics For EveryoneEDU Invited Undergraduate
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Sponsoring Units: DMP Chair: Amanda Petford-Long, Argonne National Laboratory Room: New Orleans Theater A |
Wednesday, March 15, 2017 11:15AM - 11:51AM |
L22.00001: Form, Color, and Function: Understanding the Appearance of Art through Computational Imaging and Materials Analysis Invited Speaker: Marc Walton |
Wednesday, March 15, 2017 11:51AM - 12:27PM |
L22.00002: Color: Physics and Perception Invited Speaker: Pupa Gilbert Unless we are colorblind, as soon as we look at something, we know what color it is. Simple, isn't it? No, not really. The color we see is rarely just determined by the physical color, that is, the wavelength of visible light associated with that color. Other factors, such as the illuminating light, or the brightness surrounding a certain color, affect our perception of that color. Most striking, and useful, is understanding how the retina and the brain work together to interpret the color we see, and how they can be fooled by additive color mixing, which makes it possible to have color screens and displays. I will show the physical origin of all these phenomena and give live demos as I explain how they work. Bring your own eyes! For more information: (1) watch TED talk: ``Color: Physics and Perception'' and (2) read book: PUPA Gilbert and W Haeberli ``Physics in the Arts'', ISBN 9780123918789. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 15, 2017 12:27PM - 1:03PM |
L22.00003: The Science of Optics; The History of Art Invited Speaker: Charles Falco Recently, renowned artist David Hockney observed that certain drawings and paintings from as early as the Renaissance seemed almost "photographic" in detail. Following an extensive visual investigation of western art of the past 1000 years, he made the revolutionary claim that artists even of the prominence of van Eyck and Bellini must have used optical aids. However, many art historians insisted there was no supporting evidence for such a remarkable assertion. In this talk I will show a wealth of optical evidence for his claim that Hockney and I subsequently discovered during an unusual, and remarkably productive, collaboration between an artist and a scientist. I also discuss the imaging properties of the concave mirror and some of the implications this work has for the history of science as well as the history of art (and the modern fields of machine vision and computerized image analysis). These discoveries convincingly demonstrate optical instruments were in use -- by artists, not scientists -- nearly 200 years earlier than commonly thought possible, and account for the remarkable transformation in the reality of portraits that occurred early in the 15th century. Acknowledgment: This work was done in collaboration with David Hockney. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 15, 2017 1:03PM - 1:39PM |
L22.00004: Thinking in Pictures: John Wheeler, Richard Feynman and the Diagrammatic Approach to Problem Solving. Invited Speaker: Paul Halpern While classical mechanics readily lends itself to sketches, many fields of modern physics, particularly quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and general relativity, are notoriously hard to envision. Nevertheless, John Wheeler and Richard Feynman, who obtained his PhD under Wheeler, each insisted that diagrams were the most effective way to tackle modern physics questions as well. Beginning with Wheeler and Feynman's work together at Princeton, I'll show how the two influenced each other and encouraged each other's diagrammatic methods. I'll explore the influence on Feynman of not just Wheeler, but also of his first wife Arline, an aspiring artist. I'll describe how Feynman diagrams, introduced in the late 1940s, while first seen as `heretical' in the face of Bohr's complementarity, became standard, essential methods. I'll detail Wheeler's encouragement of his colleague Martin Kruskal's use of special diagrams to elucidate the properties of black holes. Finally, I'll show how each physicist supported art later in life: Wheeler helping to arrange the Putnam Collection of 20$^{\mathrm{th}}$ century sculpture at Princeton and Feynman, in a kind of `second career,' becoming an artist himself. [Preview Abstract] |
Wednesday, March 15, 2017 1:39PM - 2:15PM |
L22.00005: Microscopy and the Mystery of Pablo Picasso's Paints Invited Speaker: Volker Rose A deep connection to our past and shared cultural heritage must be preserved to foster a balanced society where all humanity can thrive. This talk will describe analysis of paint materials used by Pablo Picasso at the nanoscale, as only possible at the brightest synchrotron sources. It will highlight how new imaging techniques can reveal the invisible, bringing to light underlying compositions of old masters' paintings. This in turn enables the writing of new art history and provides important material clues that can assist with attribution and authentication. We will explain how the use of new technology can lead to new discoveries, which, in turn, can change the public's and the specialists' perception of great works of art.$\backslash $In collaboration with scientists from The Art Institute of Chicago we have teamed up to study the chemical make up of zinc oxide pigments used in artworks by Pablo Picasso. We will show how highly focused X-ray beams with nanoscale spatial resolution and trace element sensitivity have helped to determine that Picasso has used conventional house paint in some of his paintings. Surprisingly, the study gives also new insights into the pigment material zinc oxide, which has also great potential in a variety of applications such as in spintronics or as transparent electrodes in solar panels. [Preview Abstract] |
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