THINKING MODELS
Charles Darwin
Thinking Sketches of the Evolutionary Tree-of-Life, pencil or pen on paper, 1837-1857
Visual thinking and visual ideation are vital components of both design and science. Visual ideation, a range of thinking methods that are used to generate and develop concepts, helped Darwin shape his revolutionary notions about evolution. He sketched “tree-of-life” diagrams to help him determine the nature of evolutionary processes. Darwin used sketching, information visualization, and graphic representation as mechanisms for both externalizing his thoughts while he refined them, and for communicating his ideas to the public. His “tree-of-life” sketches are design experiments: hand-on-pencil-on-paper activity that helped him to see evolution as an unpredictable, change-driven, time-based set of processes with an indeterminate beginning and end.
Seaweed Sketch, 1843, Darwin seaweed sketch, 90v. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.
In 1843 Darwin sketched this flowing seaweed-like tree on a loose piece of paper. On the paper he writes, “a tree not a good simile—endless piece of seaweed dividing”. Darwin’s use of the term “endless” suggests how essential deep time was to his ideas. This fluid seaweed drawing embodies Darwin’s belief that “all life through time” is “continuous and unbroken…” and that no “metaphor—trees, corals, or seaweeds—captured his vision.” (Archibald).
Mason Dean
Shark/Ray Cartilage Digital Parametric Modeling Study, shark jaw, micro-computed tomography scan, backscatter electron micrographs, 3-D printing, rendered digital images, video, 2013-present
The skeletons of sharks and rays represent opposite materials design strategies to ours. Whereas our skeletons are made of bone that is filled with cells charged with fixing damage to the bone, the skeletons of sharks are made of cartilage, which can be added to and patched up, but not repaired. Despite this, we know that shark and ray skeletons perform just as well as ours—and perhaps better, considering the extreme loads some species experience in their lives. These fascinating, alternative “design” solutions make productive fodder for engineering applications: How can a low-density material (cartilage) perform as well as a high-density one (bone)? How can a skeletal tissue be made resistant to damage so that it doesn’t need a cellular repair service?
Mason Dean’s collaborative research group at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam-Golm and Harvard’s Wyss Institute are both curious about the mechanical roles of material and structure in skeletons--in particular the contributions of the unique surface “tilings” that define both kinds of tissue in sharks and rays. To get a feel for how these tissues manage and distribute forces, Dean’s team builds physical and digital mimics from biological data, scaling them up to sizes that make them easier to handle and test. They first characterize the geometries and tissue properties of these natural systems using high-resolution engineering and materials science tools. Then, using a state-of-the-art multi-material 3D-printer that is typically used in industrial applications, they manufacture biorealistic models with both rigid and flexible parts. These parts can be pushed, pulled, and fractured in ways that echo biological conditions.
As in any design process, when the model raises questions or fails to work, the team returns to the source (the fish) for a deeper understanding of the templates they are exploring. This combination of biology and engineering approaches helps shine a light on the functional roles of tissues--while also pointing to features that would be useful for human-made tiled composites. Dean’s models offer ways to understand the impressive diversity of anatomies and ecologies in shark and ray species. Given that these fishes live long lives, and have existed for millions of years with these skeletons, they have much to teach us about the design of systems that never break.
From Design and Science Exhibition Cataloge, Leslie Atsmon
Jason Ferguson
The Nature of Being, polylacitic acid thermoplastic, 20 in. x 46 in. x 46 in., 2017
The Nature of Being is a full-scale reproduction of Jason Ferguson’s entire skeletal system created using MRI, CT, CBCT, and EOS scans. Ferguson collaborated with medical teams at the University of Michigan Health System and Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago to extract and replicate all 206 bones from his body. Thousands of images were compiled and processed using Simpleware Scan IP medical software. His bones were segmented from the surrounding tissue, each bone was 3D printed at a layer height of 200 microns, and the skeletal system was reassembled. The potential for an artist or designer to create an exact replica of something that exists within his or her body is a cutting-edge process that has only recently become accessible to individuals outside of the medical field. This ability has allowed Ferguson to produce sculptures that investigate his own identity and mortality. This project takes self-portraiture to a new level of embodiment, and builds upon Ferguson’s growing collection of existential artworks.
From Design and Science Exhibition Cataloge, Leslie Atsmon
Inanimate Dissection, altered shoe, wax dissection tray, T-pins, and video, H 3 in x L 13 in x D 9 in, 2008.
Inanimate Dissection applies procedures from a high-school biology lesson to a designed object--a common brown suede shoe. As the shoe was deconstructed, each layer was carefully peeled back and pinned in place following the protocol for disemboweling a frog or fetal pig. The object provides the viewer with an array of “fleshy” colors ranging from deep pink to salmon. Its visceral appearance is enhanced by the treatment of the object’s surface; a slick, glossy coating creeps over the form and collects in the bed of the dissection tray. The research required for Inanimate Dissection, and other works in the series, involved working with a pathophysiologist and performing a post-mortem examination on a human cadaver to better understand the process. Medical procedures were then applied to a shoe, a lamp, and a La-Z-Boy reclining chair in an absurd attempt to better understand material existence. This project is an exploration into what separates the materiality of Jason Ferguson’s own body from the materiality of inanimate designed objects.
From Design and Science Exhibition Cataloge, Leslie Atsmon
Rosalind Franklin
Photo 51 Showing X-Ray Diffraction Pattern of DNA, X-Ray diffraction, 1952
X-ray diffraction photograph of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).
This historical image (aka "Photo 51") of the beta (b-form) of DNA was obtained by Rosalind Franklin in 1952, the year in which Watson and Crick discovered DNA's structure, largely due to Franklin's work. The image results from a beam of X-rays being scattered onto a photographic plate by the DNA. Various features about the structure of the DNA can be determined from the pattern of spots and bands. The cross of bands indicates the helical nature of DNA.
Image and caption courtesy of Science Source
Richard Feynman
Feynman Diagrams
Kaon Decay
In this diagram, an electron and a positron annihilate, producing a photon (represented by the blue sine wave) that becomes a quark-antiquark pair, after which the antiquark radiates a gluon (represented by the green helix).
Gluon Radiation
In this diagram, a loon, made of an uo and strange antiquark, decays both weakly and strongly into into three pions, with intermediate steps involving a W boson and a gluon, represented by the blue sine wave and green spiral, respectively.
Edward Tufte
All Possible Photons: 6-Photon Scattering (120 Space-Time Feyman Diagrams), 1/8 in. stainless steel rod, 10 in. each approx. 70 in. combining all 6 sculptures; (7.5 ft. x 7.3 ft. x 2 in.), 2012.
Edward Tufts’s wall-mounted sculptures, All Possible Photons, generates an enormous multiplicity of three-dimensional optical experiences of line, light, airspace, color, shadow, form.
Made from stainless steel and air, the artworks grow out of Richard Fenyman’s famous diagrams describing Naure’s subatomic behavior. Feynman diagrams depict the space-time patterns of particles and waves of quantum electrodynamics. These mathematically derived and empirically verified visualizations represent the space-time paths taken by all subatomic particles in the universe.
The resulting conceptual and cognitive art is both beautiful and true. Along with their art, the stainless-steel elements of All Possible Photons actually represent something: the precise activities of Nature at her highest resolution.
Gathered together, as in the 120 diagrams showing all possible space-time pathos 6-photon scattering, the stainless-steel lines (and their variable shadow, airspace, light, color, form) reveal the endless complexities that result from multiplying and varied fundamental elements.
“How beautiful it was then",” writes Calvino about a time of radiant clarity in cosmic prehistory, “through that void, to draw lines and parabolas, pick out the precise point, that intersection between space and time when the event would spring forth, undeniable in the prominence of its glow.”
From Design and Science Exhibition Cataloge, Leslie Atsmon
James Watson & Francis Crick
Original Demonstration of the Double Helix, 1953
James Watson and Francis Crick, 1953
In 1953, the British and American molecular biologists Francis Crick and James Watson pulled off one of the most profound scientific triumphs of the century. Using their knowledge of chemical bonds, along with X-ray crystallography results from the British chemist Rosalind Franklin, they worked out the double-helix structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), the molecule that acts as a blueprint for all living things. Within a decade, scientists had worked out how information is coded along the molecule.
Text and image courtesy of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives
From Design and Science Exhibition Cataloge, Leslie Atsmon
Reconstructions of Double Helix Model
Reconstruction of the double helix model of DNA, using some of the original metal plates, by Francis Crick and James Watson, England, 1953
These aluminium templates are part of a model representing the structure of DNA. The plates represent bases, those groups of atoms that make up DNA's twin strands. The bases in each of the strands combine to spell out the organism's genetic code. DNA was discovered by Francis Crick (b 1916) and James Dewey Watson (b 1928) while working in the Medical Research Council Unit at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. In 1953 they constructed a molecular model of the complex genetic material deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Their analysis of the double helix shape of DNA explained how genetic information could be copied and pasted from one generation to the next. They were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology in 1962.
Text and image courtesy of Science Museum, London
Sketch of the DNA Double Helix by Francis Crick
The iconic image of the double helix--the twisted ladder that carries the codes for earth's huge variety of life forms–goes back to 1953 and the homemade metal model created by the British scientist Francis Crick and his American collaborator, James Watson. Determined to solve the puzzle posed by the research evidence at the time, they obtained new insights by visualizing the structure of the complex molecule through a physical model. This pencil sketch of DNA was made by Crick and forms part of the extensive Crick Archive at the Wellcome Library. It illustrates several structural features of the double helix: it is right-handed, with the two strands running in opposite directions; the nucleotides, the building blocks of the strands, have a part that forms the backbone and a part (the base) that projects into the middle of the helix; and the internally projecting bases in one strand are aligned so that they can pair with a base from the opposite strand. This last feature is essential for DNA to be able to perform its function of passing genetic information from one generation to the next. It is not known whether Crick drew this sketch before or after he and Watson made the famous model, but the drawing demonstrates the role that simple illustrations can play in helping to conceptualize complex problems.
Text and image courtesy of the copyright-free Wellcome Trust Digital Library
From Design and Science Exhibition Cataloge, Leslie Atsmon