The Art of Science exhibition explores the interplay between science and art. These practices both involve the pursuit of those moments of discovery when what you perceive suddenly becomes more than the sum of its parts. Each piece in this exhibition is, in its own way, a record of such a moment.

This is the fifth Art of Science competition hosted by Princeton University. The 2011 competition drew 168 submissions from 20 departments. The exhibit includes work by undergraduates, faculty, research staff, graduate students, and alumni.

The 56 works chosen for the 2011 Art of Science exhibition represent this year’s theme of “intelligent design” which we interpret in the broadest sense. These extraordinary images are not art for art’s sake. Rather, they were produced during the course of scientific research. Entries were chosen for their aesthetic excellence as well as scientific or technical interest.

The magnetic field of the Earth has reversed its polarity several hundred times during the past 160 million years. Polarity reversals are known to be strongly irregular and chaotic, and the reversal durations are relatively short (typically a few thousand years) compared with the constant polarity intervals between reversals.

This image shows a simple deterministic model illustrating the geomagnetic reversals. The model is based on the non-linear interaction between two magnetic modes (dipole and quadrupole) and one velocity component of the Earth’s core flow, and the image shows typical trajectories in the 3D phase space. The corresponding strange attractor reproduces irregular reversals between two symmetrical states. (Christophe Gissinger / Dept. of Astrophysical Sciences/ Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory) Continue reading »