Quantum mechanics encompasses some of the most elementary laws of physics that are only observable at extremely small scales. They are the elementary base on which most chemical phenomena rely, since they account for almost all behavior observed in electrons and, as Atkins stated in his 3^rd Big Idea in Chemistry, chemical bonds form when electrons pair. But in fact, most of his Big Ideas are heavily reliant on quantum mechanics, whether directly or not.

In the upper left section of the artwork, white beams of light hit triangular prisms which cause them to disperse into the full spectrum. Dispersion of white light is due to the fact that different wavelengths refract at different levels when travelling between mediums. Of course, the spectrum is in no way representative of the real visible spectrum; it is simply an abstracted artistic rendition. What is important to notice, though, is that each new prism “removes” a specific area of the spectrum. That is meant to symbolize the absorption spectrum of each element, explained by electrons absorbing photons of specific wavelengths before reemitting them in different, random directions. Though it is not depicted here, the reemitted photons are of the same wavelength as the one absorbed, thus showing the principle of conservation of energy. Also, the size of each prism is reminiscent of the atomic radius which varies periodically in Mendeleev’s table.

Then, in the top right section, light is refocused in a single point, towards a coloured disk which symbolizes a metal. The different colours represent all the electromagnetic wavelengths which hit the metal, while the smaller disks of single colours represent the electrons that were ripped from that metal by the photoelectric effect, where photons with sufficient energy can ionize electrons. Though an electron itself does not have colour, if its kinetic energy and the minimum ionization energy of the metal are known, it is possible to retrace the wavelength of the photon that ripped that electron. And since the light that hit the metal was composed of multiple wavelengths, it explains why electrons were depicted it different colours.

In the bottom left corner, a molecule is depicted using a purposely modified version of Schrödinger’s model. The reason it is not entirely correct is that the molecule depicted contains a newly discover bond called vibrational bond. This bond occurs between muonium, which is the center atom, and heavy bromine atoms. Muonium is in fact a hydrogen atom in which the electron has been replaced by a heavier negatively charged particle – a muon. This bond forms despite the fact that it trespasses an important barrier to chemical bonding. Indeed, bonds usually occur because they lower the potential energy in the system. But in this case, the potential energy is actually increased by bonding. The reason this is possible is that “something called the vibrational zero point energy decreases so much, it stabilizes the system”. Inspired by this extraordinary discovery, I took over the challenge of depicting this bond in an artistic and visually appealing way. Despite the need to improvise, I still decided to respect the Valence Shell Electron-Pair Repulsion model in which bonds, or electronic domains, tend to repel and therefore to maximize the distance between them. In order to achieve that, hydrogen is shown to hybridize, which is normally impossible. On the other hand, the periodicity of the elements in the molecule was respected by illustrating bromine nuclei as larger that the hydrogen one.

In the lower right corner is an artistic representation of a substance at negative Kelvin temperatures. The big coloured circle symbolizes the possible range of positive Kelvin temperatures, in a way reminiscent of infrared vision. Then, smaller circles representing atoms were merged into the picture using a negative filter. The effect created is that atoms have the exact inverse of the temperature in which they are situated. And the inverse of any possible positive temperature is automatically below the absolute zero. Such temperatures have been attained in laboratories by using lasers to inverse the distribution of energy in a gas situated near the absolute zero. Thus, an effect that seems to contradict the laws of thermodynamics has been obtained. These four sections of the artwork representing four different slices of knowledge are all related to quantum mechanics. But, from a more artistic point of view, they are also all framed in a big uniform representation of a molecule in Lewis’ notation. But that molecule can clearly not exist. Not only because it does not respect the VSEPR model, but also because it has a truly impossible geometrical shape. It is composed of two cubes, but these cubes are drawn in different, counter-intuitive and incompatible perspectives. Yet, on paper, they coexist, in the same way wave and particle properties coexist in light. Therefore, in the end, the whole artwork is just another model. But isn’t that the case for anything in science?

Francis Diep. Popular Science. “Chemists Find a New Chemical Bond”. October 27th, 2014. URL: http://www.popsci.com/article/science/chemists-find-new-chemical-bond

Zeeya Merali. Nature. “Quantum Gas Goes Below Absolute Zero”. January 3rd, 2013. URL: http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-gas-goes-below-absolute-zero-1.12146