Get Your Own Science Art
Posted on January 21, 2007 Comments (3)
Cool science art from Bathsheba Sculpture.
This sculpture, etched in a heavy 3 1/4″ glass cube, shows hemoglobin’s beautiful structure: the four heme groups each with its iron atom, the two alpha and two beta subunits, and the translucent molecular surface over all.
As well as being handsome and useful, hemoglobin is a star of scientific history. With its close relative myoglobin, it was the first protein to have its 3D structure determined by X-ray crystallography. Max Perutz and John Kendrew at Cambridge University received the Nobel Prize in 1962 for doing it.
The site offers various crystals and sculptures created by Bathsheba Grossman. The art itself is very cool and the site includes interesting information on the science represented by the art and the engineering behind creating the art.
To draw more points, the laser is pulsed on and off. To make the beam move between points, it’s reflected from a mirror that is repositioned between pulses. The mirror is moved by computer-controlled motors, so many points can be drawn with great speed and accuracy. A typical design might use several hundred thousand points, or half a million isn’t unusual in a large block, each placed with .001”³ accuracy.
Related: Art of Science 2006 – The Art and Science of Imaging – Science and Engineering gadgets and gifts – Small World Photos – NSF: The Art of Engineering – Natural History Museum Wildlife Photos – Art of Science 2005 – Van Gogh Painted Perfect Turbulence
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