150 BC – Greek Orrery

An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system. The left image shows the Antikythera, the oldest known orrery. The middle image shows a virtual reconstruction. The right image shows a contemporary orrery. The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient analog computer designed to predict astronomical positions and eclipses. It was recovered in 1900–01 from the Antikythera wreck, a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. The instrument was designed and constructed by Greek scientists and has […]

An orrery is a mechanical model of the solar system. The left image shows the Antikythera, the oldest known orrery. The middle image shows a virtual reconstruction. The right image shows a contemporary orrery. The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient analog computer designed to predict astronomical positions and eclipses. It was recovered in 1900–01 from the Antikythera wreck, a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera. The instrument was designed and constructed by Greek scientists and has been dated between 150 to 100 BC. After the knowledge of this technology was lost at some point in antiquity, technological artifacts approaching its complexity and workmanship did not appear again until the 14th century, when mechanical astronomical clocks began to be built in Western Europe. Sources: Wikipedia. Antikythera. NOVA documentary on the Antikythera. Wikipedia. Orrery. Middle image: Massimo Mogi Vicentini (2012) The Antikhytera Celestial Machine: fragments of genius from a legendary science. Right image by Zeamon.

Added by: Melanie Bacou & Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Physical model Tags: astronomy, greece, mechanical interaction, physical computation, pragmatic, science, time

2002 – Bathsheba Grossman's Crystal Engravings

Artist Bathsheba Grossman has been 3D printing mathematical surfaces as early as 1997. In 2002 she started to use subsurface laser engraving to produce 3D physical visualizations of data from astronomy, biology, and physics. Left image: a piece of DNA molecule. Right image: a 3D map of our nearby stars. The artist explains to us: This medium excels at imaging less structural data such as disconnected volumes, non-compact point clouds, and the convoluted strands of proteins. It works by […]

Artist Bathsheba Grossman has been 3D printing mathematical surfaces as early as 1997. In 2002 she started to use subsurface laser engraving to produce 3D physical visualizations of data from astronomy, biology, and physics. Left image: a piece of DNA molecule. Right image: a 3D map of our nearby stars. The artist explains to us: This medium excels at imaging less structural data such as disconnected volumes, non-compact point clouds, and the convoluted strands of proteins. It works by projecting intersecting Nd:YAG laser beams into clear glass, concentrating enough energy at the intersection to create a microfracture that is precisely located within the glass. The laser is then pulsed and moved; a typical image might contain from 100,000 to several million marks. The art of the medium is in regulating position and density of the marks so that bright lines and points are produced, as well as surfaces of varying translucency, without concentrating marks so closely as to over stress the glass and produce larger fractures. Sources: http://www.bathsheba.com (2002 version). http://crystalprotein.com

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic & Bathsheba Grossman. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: 3d printing, astronomy, biology, digital fabrication, math, physics, science, subsurface laser engraving

2015 – Solid Model of Stellar Winds

Scientists keep using solid models to help them better understand complex 3D data (here, an astrophysical simulation): They say this provides even more insight into what’s going on. “The ability to hold and inspect the 3-D printed models provides a new perspective on the WWIR’s geometry and an improved sense of the scale of the different structures,” they say. In particular, they say the model allows them to appreciate just how large the shockwave is compared to the stars and the distance […]

Scientists keep using solid models to help them better understand complex 3D data (here, an astrophysical simulation): They say this provides even more insight into what’s going on. “The ability to hold and inspect the 3-D printed models provides a new perspective on the WWIR’s geometry and an improved sense of the scale of the different structures,” they say. In particular, they say the model allows them to appreciate just how large the shockwave is compared to the stars and the distance between them. Sources: Clive Thompson (2015) Astronomers print 3D models of colliding solar winds. Madura et al (2015) 3D printing meets computational astrophysics: deciphering the structure of η Carinae’s inner colliding winds.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Jean-Daniel Fekete. Category: Physical model Tags: 3d printing, astronomy, digital fabrication, science, simulation

2017 – Gravity Wave Spectrogram - LIGO

Humanity has been gazing at light from distant stars since time immemorial. But in 2015, our ability to understand the University achieved a major milestone, when ripples in Spacetime itself - instead of light - told the tale of an ancient, cataclysmic collision between black holes. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is an experimental system of almost unbelievable sensitivity. Using interferometer arms four kilometers long, it can detect changes in length as tiny as […]

Humanity has been gazing at light from distant stars since time immemorial. But in 2015, our ability to understand the University achieved a major milestone, when ripples in Spacetime itself - instead of light - told the tale of an ancient, cataclysmic collision between black holes. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is an experimental system of almost unbelievable sensitivity. Using interferometer arms four kilometers long, it can detect changes in length as tiny as 1/10,000 the width of a proton. Over a billion years ago, two huge black holes, with a combined mass 60 times that of our Sun, spiraled into each other. This event shook the very fabric of space and time, and about three solar masses were converted completely into energy in the form of gravity waves. These waves have been travelling outwards in all directions at the speed of light, until they were noticed by LIGO, on 14 Sept 2015, first at the installation in Hanford, WA, and milliseconds later at Livingston, LA (GW150914). The LIGO team released a 2D spectrogram of the data, showing how the intensity of the gravity waves at different frequencies changed over the course of the event. In this case, the x-axis is time, the y-axis is frequency, and the intensity is indicated by the color. As predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity, the coalescing of the black holes involved a "ringdown" increase in intensity of the high-frequency components as they spiraled together faster and faster. I (Louis R. Nemzer) converted this spectrogram into a 3D-printed model. This way, the peak is much more apparent, and the primary signal, as well as the background noise, is much easier to appreciate. This event has paved the way for a new era in astronomy, in which gravity wave signals, along with light, will let us peer deeper into the vastness of Space. Sources: "Gravity Wave Spectrogram" by Louis R. Nemzer hosted on Thingiverse Data from the LIGO Open Science Center

Added by: Louis R. Nemzer. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: astronomy, Gravity Waves, physics, science