We can’t actually know what reality is. Physicists like me try but we are mere storytellers. Our stories use the language of math to connect scattered experimental numbers. While the experiments are set, the paths connecting them are not. This freedom allows for more than one physics story. More than one description of reality.

Good stories tie a few measurements together. Great stories connect many. The best reflect the physicist as much as it does the physics. Unfortunately, physics stories generally need years of study to understand.

By transforming my science into art I’ve created a way to tell my physics story that is accessible to everyone .

Cosmic Art reframes Cosmic Studio’s leading scientific advancements in plasma physics as art. For the details on the physics check out our article pre-print. 

The ionosphere, a part of Earth’s atmosphere at the boundary with space, is a dynamic environment made of plasma and neutral particles. While space science has studied the ionosphere we’ve lacked the physics foundation needed to really understand measurements. Cosmic Studio’s physics solution provides that foundation.

Cosmic Studio makes it possible for measurements by satellites and CubeSats like SORTIE, shown being launched from the International Space Station, to contribute to our understanding of ionospheric dynamics. Cosmic Studio’s Dr. Stoneback led the design and development of a plasma instrument on SORTIE.

Simplified, Cosmic Studio’s physics advance is the creation of a “graph paper”, or vector basis. The basis organizes measurements from science satellites and enables physics calculations, necessary steps to understand the ionosphere.

For more than 30 years, the space science community has been using a warped and physically incorrect graph paper. It was believed that it was impossible to do better.

Cosmic Studio invented a way to create ideal graph paper even for complex magnetic fields, like the Earth’s. 

Once we have these ideal locations and directions for plasma physics we can numerically calculate global electric fields and plasma motions. As the solar wind flows past the Earth, it applies an electric field across the magnetic poles. This polar electric field produces a global response but has minimal impact at the magnetic equator. With Cosmic Studio’s new physics solution this calculation is not only possible, it is accurate and optimally simple.

Cosmic Studio’s work also makes it possible, for the first time, to extend the same techniques to Mars and the Sun.

The artwork is generated from the science. Simplified, we start with scientific plots related to physical outputs or software performance. We visualize the data using colors that accurately reflect underlying changes. Then we remove the titles, the axes labels, and the color bars. This process ensures that the science is the art.

It isn’t typical for physics software to make artwork. Consider a test plot of our plasma physics solution on the simplest magnetic field. Note the randomness of most of it.

Here is the same plot when doing the same test but using Earth’s magnetic field. While the error rates have similar values, note how different the distribution is.

Every algorithm in the new physics software had to be invented or designed, with each component balanced against each other. Software isn’t accurate by default, accuracy must be added. Further, it all needs to be high performance when dealing with actual fields, not just test models. The artwork reflects all of these details and more.

To ensure the highest quality work we’ve constructed a precision plotting pipeline to ensure that every calculated data value ends up faithfully reproduced, without distortion or modification. We’ve also expanded upon the scientific color space to ensure even the smallest changes in data are visible.

Finally, we ran the big computer for months to generate high quality science suitable to be called fine art.

Overall, it took more than 15 years to invent and transform plasma physics into art. 

Our gallery canvas prints work great in any room and any lighting. The high quality canvas has a satin finish, a mirrored edge, is 1.5″ thick, and is ready to hang.

Metal prints provide a sleek and modern presentation that floats off the wall. Ideal for brightly lit rooms with windows, the matte surface minimizes direct reflections so that the art is always at the forefront.

Crafted from panels of ChromaLuxe® aluminum, the images are permanently transferred to the metal using a high temperature and pressure sublimation process.

Ultra-modern format with vivid colors. The artwork is printed on museum quality photo paper and face mounted to TruLife® acrylic glass so you’re looking through the acrylic at the artwork. The acrylic mounting not only provides visual depth it protects the artwork so that it lasts a lifetime. Larger prints are supported with acrylic.