Finally Tuned (2022) Sculpture by Catalin Domniteanu

Think of Bohr's atomic model, with a few orbits around the nucleus. Give it a body – extrude the layers down and you get something that resembles a roman amphitheatre (it shouldn’t be down, but even a work of art must obey gravity). The tribunes have different elevations just as the orbits of the electrons have discrete levels of energy. And every tribune has subdivisions of discrete values, as suggested by the stained-glass ring.

Schrödinger’s probability wave equation tells us that the electrons don’t have a unique position in space, but they spread over a volume of space, simultaneously, just like the body of this amphitheatre. The Schrödinger’s dilemma, whether the cat is dead or alive inside the box, before looking, persists today in science, known as the “observer’s problem” (or, the “measurement problem”). The two shoes (one burned - the dead, and one shiny - the alive) invite us to reflect over the counterintuitive nature of the subatomic world, because we’re not used to see things in such disembodied, probabilistic way. Our macro-world is rather consistent in time and not observer dependent.

The structure of an atom is complex, and the dynamics within the atom are incredible. Radiation occurs by laws of probability, never predictable with high degree of precision - we gave that role to the suspended copper tube. Other creatures, appearing from different sides of the atom’s body, substantiate the intricacy of the atom, suggesting perhaps subatomic components breaking off from their host under whatever external interactions or internal instability.

Next, one may identify a set of levers, dials, gears, and gauges displaced around the atom. They must be there. They must be there. They serve to fine-tune the physical constants that every single atom in the universe obeys: the elementary charge of the electron, the universal gravitational constant, the Plank constant, the speed of light in vacuum, the electric permitivity and the magnetic permeability of the vacuum, the electron’s mass, and maybe others. They must be there, acting unequivocally inside the structure of the atom, making all the building blocs of matter to be consistent and compatible… for the universe to exist.

The beauty of these control knobs and gauges fine-tuning the properties of the underlying structure of reality is that it allows for flowers’ perfume and sweet nectar to emerge. The laws of nature bear the potential for life to emerge. I, the author of this work, am determined to celebrate it.

Related themes

AtomLaws Of PhysicsUniversal ConstantsSuperpositionQuanta