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| Science, Concert Halls and Egos
Huffington Post by Eric J. Heller March 19, 2013 In January 2009 pianist Anne-Marie McDermott gushed to The New York Times about the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall in New York's Lincoln Center, after playing a Steinway there: "Oh my God, it's heaven," said [McDermott]. "You can do anything: the clarity, the range." She called the sound fat, rich and buttery, and unfamiliar from prerenovation days. "I wouldn't have recognized it," she said. This seemed to settle the matter: Finally, success in one of the storied and troubled performance spaces in Lincoln Center. The praise for Alice Tully Hall did not go unanswered for long. Just over a month later, again in The New York Times, music critic Allan Kozinn wrote, "If you've been dreaming ... that the new hall, with its rich hues, will yield a lush, vibrant tone, it's time to wake up." Just in case you didn't get his drift, he added in July, "I hate the new Tully Hall." It's hard to believe that he was talking about the same Tully Hall as McDermott. Could both be right? Could a concert space delight musicians and anger the audience? | ||
| Why You Hear What You Hear: An Experiential Approach to Sound, Music, and Psychoacoustics
physicstoday by Joe Wolfe, Reviewer University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia April 2013 There’s a good reason Harvard University’s Eric Heller titled his book Why You Hear What You Hear: An Experiential Approach to Sound, Music, and Psychoacoustics. He hopes the reader will learn from doing. Much of those three areas of acoustics can be experienced via the ears or can be shown in animations, which can often make those topics accessible to students without much math or physics background. Consequently, the book frequently directs readers to its extensive supporting website, http://www.whyyouhearwhatyouhear.com. For several decades now, books on acoustics have been supplemented with sound recordings, and the use of the Web is an important next step. This book’s website contains suggestions on using a variety of readily available software for sound analysis and synthesis and for creating wave-behavior animations. It also links to many other animations and sound media. | ||
| Login with Facebook to see what your friends are readingEnable Social Readingi Eric J. HellerAbbott and James Lawrence Profess
Huffington Post by Eric J. Heller 01/23/2013 Without precedent or warning, a loud boom sounding like a major piece of artillery frightens your normally quiet neighborhood. Houses shake and dishes rattle. The jolt is singular, percussive -- and ominous. Later the TV news reports that the boom was heard over many miles, but nothing exploded. No supersonic aircraft flew by. Someone saw yellow light in the sky. | ||
| RESONANCE FINE ART BY ERIC J. HELLER
Sciencescapes by Roberto C. Alamino April 2012 "Eric J. Heller is a Professor of Chemistry and Physics in Harvard University. His group works with few body quantum mechanics, scattering theory and quantum chaos. It’s from his scientific work that the beautiful pictures in his website Resonance Fine Art are born." | ||
| When Quantum Physics Becomes Modern Art
Environmental Graffiti by Alka Sharma 2011 "Don’t get confused with such high scientific terms. Have you ever thought about what it would be like to look from the top down into a three dimensional perfect crystal? Or a superposition of 21 plane waves? Or maybe an image of a quasicrystal, showing some aspects of a crystalline order? Scientist Dr. Eric J. Heller has come forward with very interesting research work that involves the theoretical investigation of wave behavior, chaos and quantum mechanics and collision theory." Read more at http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-where-science-inspires-art-and-art-informs-science-incredible-images#4ZAOJwYSrPmdFjks.99 | ||
| Art Meet Science
Hea Eesti Idee by Marge Pass, Doctoral student of cultural studies in Tallinn University June 13, 2011 Erik Heller, who holds a Ph.D. in Physics and Chemistry, is one of the best-known scientists using science for artistic applications. Here we can see a contrary situation, in which the artist is not pushing their way into laboratories but a scientist himself is manipulating science for artistic purposes. “Approaching Chaos” by Eric Heller uses science as a medium through which he passes on the secrets of natural law. He writes mathematical algorithms for which he takes information from quantum physics, and as a result computer software generates respective visualisations that can be used in art in the form of photos or graphics. For him, it is not so much the software module that is important here but the outcome of how to depict the indefinite, chaos and infinity. | ||
| Feynman's Vision: The Next 50 Years
TEDxCaltech January 14, 2011 TEDxCaltech was an unprecedented event that brought together innovators, explorers, teachers and learners for an exhilarating day of collaboration, conversation and celebration. We assembled a group of inventive thinkers and creative artists who are pushing the boundaries of their own disciplines. Throughout the day they introduced groundbreaking new ideas, shared inspired stories and gave us a glimpse at the technology of the future. Inspired by Caltech’s own Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate, iconoclast and visionary, the day was an exciting and entertaining intellectual adventure! | ||
| Sensations of Tone: wave physics and the creative arts
Harvard Arts Beat October 27, 2010 The two nights include panel discussions with experts, as well as musical performances interspersed on both evenings. Panelists for Thursday, October 27 include Eric (Rick) J. Heller, professor of chemistry and physics at Harvard; Emily Dolan, a 2009-2010 Radcliffe Institute Fellow and assistant professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania; and Mike Einziger, guitarist for the band Incubus. The panel for Friday, October 28 includes Harvard’s professor of music Alexander Rehding; Jimena Canales, associate professor of the history of science at Harvard; and Myles Jackson, professor of the philosophy of science and technology at NYU. | ||
| Cover of Discover Magazine
Discover Magazine by Heller February 2009 Eric Heller's image, Nodal 5, adapted for the cover of Discover Magazine. Good choice! | ||
| What Is This? A Psychedelic Place Mat?
Discover Magazine by Andrew Grant February 2009 This image depicts the interaction of nine plane waves—expanding sets of ripples, like the waves you would see if you simultaneously dropped nine stones into a still pond. The pattern is called a quasicrystal because it has an ordered structure, but the structure never repeats exactly. The waves produced by dropping four or more stones into a pond always form a quasicrystal. Because of the wavelike properties of matter at subatomic scales, this pattern could also be seen in the waveform that describes the location of an electron. Harvard physicist Eric Heller created this computer rendering and added color to make the pattern’s structure easier to see. | ||
| Beautiful physics and the physics of the beautiful
Physics Today by Eric J. Heller March 2009 "Science and art have been connected for a long time. At the dawn of civilization, the two were not distinguished. In the early Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci embodied the best of the science and art of his time . . ." | ||
| Eric Heller, the Art of Physics
Art Digital Magazine by Max Eternity February 28, 2009 "All art has a valid source. And should that source be from science, then so be it; so long as its ultimate goal is for the betterment of humanity, and not a simpleminded act of vanity." | ||
| Electrons in Two Dimensions: Quantum Corrals and Semiconductor Microstructures
Nanotechnology 501 Lecture Series by Eric J. Heller December 2, 2007 An online presentation on material science, quantum corrals, quantum mechanics and scanning tunneling microscopy. | ||
| Quarks and Creation
American Public Media—Speaking of Faith by John Polkinghorne, speaker April 20, 2006 Cover Image Science and religion are often pitted against one another; but how do they complement, rather than contradict, one another? We learn how one man applies the deepest insights of modern physics to think about how the world fundamentally works, and how the universe might make space for prayer. | ||
| Electron Landscape
American Scientist Online by Felice Frankel Jan-Feb 2004 "Eric J. Heller is professor of physics and chemistry at Harvard University. When we met a few years ago, I was first drawn to Eric's incredible landscape photographs." Felice Frankel | ||
| SIGGRAPH 2005 Art Gallery
Computer Graphics World June 2005 "Rogue IV by Eric Heller is a lightjet print that illustrates complicated natural occurrences through artwork." | ||
| Brownbag Recordings
Exploritorium San Francisco Pod Casts by Dr. Stephanie Chasteen May 19, 2006 Rick Heller (Harvard) and Don Eigler (IBM-Almaden) Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes (54 MB). Don discusses his work manipulating atoms with the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) and explains how that works. Eric (Rick) Heller chimes in about his collaborations with Don, and shows some of his own artistic science images. | ||
| From Mirror Neurons to the Mona Lisa Visual Art and the Brain
Update, New York Academy of Sciences Magazine by Catherine Zandonella March/April 2006 See: Probing the Picasso Lobe. What Scientists are Learning; What Art|sts Know. "A painting or movie evokes strong feelings, and we say we feel it in our. . ." "Harvard Physicist Eric Heller is one of the reare scientists who creates visual images of scientific phenomena for the enjoyment of others. He draws on his research in few-body quantum mechanics, scattering theory, and quantum chaos for subjects, usually related to nature's repetition of pattern on vastly different scales. When discussing visual images in science or art, Heller starts with the premise that there is no absolute truth in visual representation." | ||
| Truth & Beauty
Boston Globe by Harvey Blume June 6, 2004 Where does science end and art begin? A Harvard physicist and an MIT photographer offer different -- and surprising -- answers. | ||
| Freak waves: just bad luck, or avoidable?
europhysics news by Eric J. Heller Sept—October 2005 Take a look at the work that inspired Eric's newest images based on the study of rogue waves! | ||
| Moving Pixels: Blockbuster Animation, Digital Art and 3D Modeling Today
Thames & Hudson, London by Peter Weishar 2004 ""Moving Pixels" is the first comprehensive collection of three-dimensional CDI images from the most renowned film studios, animation and special-effects houses, and independent digital artists working today." Phil Tippett | ||
| ACS Award in Theoretical Chemistry
Chemical and Engineering News January 24, 2005 "His ideas have been essential not only for the development of new computational methods, but often they have fundamentally changed the way we think about chemical behavior." John C. Tully, chemistry and physics professor at Yale University. | ||
| Mathematik & Kunst: So schön kann Mathe sein
P.M. Magazin by Peter Ripota March 3, 2005 Für Laien sind mathematische Formeln nur abstrakte Zahlen und Buchstaben; geheime Codes, mit denen Experten die Wirklichkeit berechnen können. Wissenschaftler aber begeistern sich auch für die »Eleganz« von Gleichungen. Und für ihre Schönheit. Die Bildwerke des Harvard-Physikers Eric J. Heller beweisen: zu Recht!. Von Peter Ripota | ||
| Science News Cover
Science News December 18 & 25, 2004 Physicists have recently devised techniques for peering inside semiconductor layers much like those in ordinary microchips. By adding color, light, and shadow to the surprisingly intricate trajectories of electrons, Eric J. Heller produces stunning art prints, such as this one ("Exponential"/ Heller). | ||
| Growing nanotech trade hit by questions over quality
Nature by Jim Giles 16 December 2004 Nanowire image "The surge of interest in nanotechnology has created buyers and sellers of materials who aren't properly equipped to do business, analysts have warned." | ||
| Visit Eric Heller's Group Web Page
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| An Electron Runs through It
Science News by Peter Weiss Week of Dec. 18, 2004; Vol. 166, No. 25/26 , p. 394 Most paintings or prints lose their definition the closer you get to them. That doesn't happen when you put your nose near the arresting prints of Harvard University physicist Eric J. Heller. The closer you approach Heller's prints, which resemble swaying seaweed, rippling silks, and Georgia O'Keeffe flowers, the more refined the images get. By the standard artistic metrics of form, color, and composition, these are stunning artworks. Yet each one tells a scientific tale as well: Heller's prints depict the subtle interplay between some microchip electrons and the crystalline landscape in which they move. | ||
| Atomi Taide
Tiede (Finland) by Michael Grafton July 2004 Tiede produced Eric's work in a feature article including 4 full-color pages and a four page foldout (86 x 27 cm) with a different image on each side, ready for mounting or display as a poster. | ||
| Electronic Grace
Super Vision: A New View of Nature by Ivan Amato November 2003. A new book from Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers "At once a primer on the scientific worldview and a reminder of the awesome, multidimensional beauty of nature, "Super Vision" will simultaneously inform and delight. Looking through the "eyes" of today's high-tech imaging machines, we have acquired powers far more potent than Superman's X-ray vision. With "Super Vision," much of what lies hidden in nature is revealed." Quote from dust jacket. | ||
| Subatomic Art
Discovery Canada: Science News on the Discovery Channel by Laura Boast, Producer May 2002 Click on #1 Sub Atomic Art (Video). It takes a while to down load so be patient. Working 2/2/2005. | ||
| The Connection: Framing the invisible
National Public Radio The Connection by Host Dick Gordon May 7, 2002 | ||
| A Conversation with Eric J. Heller
New York Times — Science Times by Claudia Dreifus April 30, 2002 | ||
| Digital Visions from the Subatomic Realm
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, January/February 2002 (Cover) by Gary Singh January/February 2002 Cover Image: Rotating Rotators II. Inside:2 full pages containing 3 images: Double Diamond, Transport III, Transport VI. The article available for purchase at IEEE website and is free to IEEE members. Click on title above. | ||
| The Inside World of Atoms
Focus—The Magazine of Science and Discovery (United Kingdom) by Emma Bayley December 2001 Seven full color pages containing 10 images: Transoport II, Exponential, Random Sphere I, Linear Ramp, Double Diamond, Torus I, Suris, Chaotic Map, Quasicrystal III, Analyzed Collision | ||
| Konstnarling Professor Gav Kanten ett Ansikte
Ny Teknik (Sweden) by Anders Wallerius November 2001 Cover: Picture of Eric Heller and Suris Inside: 7 images—Double Diamond, Suris, Quasicrystal III, Transport III, Exponential, Collision, Analyzed Collision | ||
| Eravamo digitali. Ora Siamo Visuali
La Republica (Italy) by Nicholas Negroponte October 2001 Two full color images: Transport II and Bessel 21. | ||
| Arte Atomica
Focus Magazine (Italy) by Andrea Parlangeli October 2001 Seven beautiful full pages with 10 full color images and a picture of Eric Heller. "SPECIALE: Queste immagini sono arte o scienza? Entrambe, secondo Eric Heller, il fisico che le ha realizzate. E secondo voi?" | ||
| Quantum Chaos
Computer Graphics World by Karen Moltenbrey October 2001 Inspired by his own scientific research, Eric J. Heller's digital abstract art evokes a world we cannot see—the quantum realm of electrons, atoms, and molecules. "I want the viewer to sense that the quantum world is mysterious and fascinating, a place very different from what we see with the unaided senses," says Heller. | ||
| Going with the Flow
WIRED by Justin Silverman July 2001 The trajectories of 100,000 computer-generated electrons surge across Eric J. Heller's canvas. | ||
| Visual Art and Science Collide at MIT
Boston Herald by Mary Sherman February 25, 2001 Science or art? Or both? The Harvard physicist Eric Heller seems to see little distinction between the two and not surprisingly. | ||
| Weird Science
Boston Globe by Christopher Muther February 13, 2001 We were completely devastated when NBC had the nerve to ax "Freaks and Geeks" last year. Yes, we can still see old episodes on cable Tuesday nights, but we want to know what happens to the gang at McKinley High in the future. We can only imagine that if the show made it to its 10th season, the geeks would have gone on to create an art exhibit much like the one opening tonight at MIT Museum's Compton Gallery. Harvard Physicist Eric Heller combines art and science in "Approaching Chaos." . . . While the images were made for scientific purposes, they stand up beautifully on their own as objects of art. | ||
| The Inside World of Atoms
Focus - United Kingdom by Emma Bayley December 2001 Using the laws that define quantum mechanics, a Harvard professor has created artworks that reflect the mysteries of the subatomic world. | ||
| Back to the Quantum Future
Science News (cover) by Ivars Peterson November 2, 1991 The results achieved by Heller's group represent more than just a new, potentially faster tool for chemists and physicists to simulate atomic and mlecular behavior. Scientists now have some assurance that they can apply classical and semiclassical approximations to quantum theory more broadly than they had previously thought. | ||
| Creating Art from Classical and Quantum Chaos
APS News by Barrie Ripin December, 1999 American Physical Society - Heller's interest in the field of chaos began with his investigation of standing quantum waves in a stadium shaped box, specifically the periodic orbits generated by a classical particle bouncing around the box. | ||
| Taking a Quantum Leap into the Art World
The Boston Globe by David Wildman February 11, 2001 Although the work does come out of computer algorithms that Heller writes to mathematically describe scientific phenomena, the result is anything but dry. In some of the works, huge lightning bolts seem to be emanating from a bleak, alien landscape, reaching out toward an endless sky. Others give the impression of vast and colorful intertwined strands of DNA twisting in a void. | ||
| Electron Flow in Two Dimensions
Nature (cover) by M.A. Topinka, B.J. LeRoy, R.M. Westervelt, S.E.J. Shaw, R. Fleischmann, E.J. Heller, K.D. Maranowski, A.C. Gossard March 8, 2001 Semiconductor nanostructures based on two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) could form the basis of future devices for sensing, information processing and quantum computation. | ||
| Artistic Science?
Earth Star by Eric Heller April/May 2001 Why does a scientist turn to art as a means of expression? Can anything generated on a computer be called fine art? Are you an artist, or a scientist? These questions are raised again and again in connection with my exhibition "Approaching Chaos" now at the Compton Gallery at MIT, and soon to travel around the country. | ||
| Museums Boston v.5 (cover) Spring, 2001 | ||
| Insufficient Chaos
Arts Media (cover) by William Corbett April 15 - May 15, 2001 Eric J. Heller is a physicist at Harvard who is also, according to a wall text in this exhibition, a landscape photographer. In "Approaching Chaos" he shows more than twenty laser prints of the atomic world. This world cannot be seen by the naked eye. To achieve his images Heller moved beyond traditional mediums. "My brush is the computer," he writes, "the paints I use are algorithms based on the flow of electrons, the collisions of molecules and the properties of random waves." | ||
| Regional Reviews
Art New England by Harvey Blume June/July, 2001 Eric Heller is drawn to the subatomic world the way Monet was drawn to water lilies or Mondrian to trees. Like these artists, Heller works from nature—except it's an aspect of nature that has only recently become available for inspection and representation. | ||
| Electronic Art and Animation Catalog, Computer Graphics Annual Conference Series, 2001, SIGGRAPH August, 2001 | ||
| Harvard University Courses of Instruction Catalog 2001-2002 (cover) September, 2001 | ||
| Gli Occhi Della Scienza
La Republica by Alvin Toffler October, 2001 Alghe? No, flusso di elettroni. Un flusso di elettroni visualizzato in um esperimento ad Harvard. I filamenti piu scuri rappresentano le concentrazioni piu intense di flusso elettronico. L'immagine e stata realizzatat da Eric Heller | ||
| Quantum Art: Eric Heller's Painterly Physics
Harvard Magazine by Craig Lambert January/February, 2001 Art can lead to science," says Eric Heller, Ph.D'73', noting "that chaos theory would never have taken off without some gorgeous images—like fractals that came out of computers." | ||
| Physicist draws on left side of brain: Professor finds art and science make good chemistry together
Harvard University Gazette by Alvin Powell December 14, 2001 A molecule streaks in from the right, smashing into a smaller molecule entering from the top. A third strikes the two as they briefly merge, sending all three on their separate ways, down and out of the frame. | ||
Ordered Motion and Crystals || Quantum Random Waves || Classical Electron Flow || Quantum Modes and Classical Analogs || Quasi Classical Correspondence, Quantum Scars || Quantum Resonances || Classical Collisions || Quantum Quasi Crystal || Maps || Caustics || Rogue Waves || Screen Savers || Sound
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