XAVIER CORTADA
In 2013 I was invited to see the planet’s largest science experiment at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva. My art wound up honouring the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the Higgs boson, the particle that imbues all the others with mass. Five banners depict the five experiments used to make the discovery.
Identifying the Higgs required the most complex machine humans have ever built, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The particle accelerator shoots protons at almost the speed of light along a 27 km tunnel. Every second 40 million protons collide with one another. These high- energy collisions make new particles and new mass.
The LHC’S detectors did not directly measure the Higgs. They measured the paths taken by the photons, quarks and electrons created in the collisions. The curvature of the paths
revealed the charge and momentum of the particles, and the size of the signal their energy. The data told scientists there was another particle – the Higgs boson – produced in the collisions.
Let me tell you why these experiments were so important. When physicists first came up with the Standard Model of Physics, a theory to describe the forces and particles of nature, they couldn’t figure out how to give those particles mass. This was quite a problem, because particles with no mass would move at the speed of light and be unable to slow down enough to form atoms. Without atoms the universe would be very different.
In the 1960s British physicist Peter Higgs and others independently came up with a theory to solve that problem. Just as marine creatures move in water, all particles in the universe move in a fundamental energy field – now commonly known as the Higgs field. As particles travel through the field, their intrinsic properties generate more or less mass – much as the properties of an animal create different degrees of drag as it moves through water. Think of a barracuda and a manatee. The sleeker barracuda is going to move faster.
Mathematically, the theory required the existence of a particle representing the ‘excited state’ of the field. This new particle – dubbed the Higgs boson – would be to the Higgs field what photons are to the electromagnetic field. Finding the particle involved scientists from 182 universities and institutes in 42 countries. On 4 July 2012, half a century after it was first postulated, CERN scientists announced its discovery.
The detection itself was intricate and multilayered, and so were the artworks I created. Stained glass references the LHC as a modern- day cathedral that helps us understand the universe and shape our new world view. The oil painting technique honours those who came before us, the repetition of motifs across the five works celebrates internationalism, and rendering the work as ‘banners’ marks this as a monumental event.
Most importantly, the background for the banners honours the scientific collaboration. It is composed of words from the pages of 383 joint publications and the names of more than 4,000 scientists, engineers and technicians. With this piece I wanted to create art from the very words, charts, graphs and ideas of this coalition of thinkers.
It was a supremely important moment for humanity. I wanted the art to mark that event at the exact location where the experiment took place. These five banners hang at the exact location of the LHC, where the Higgs boson was discovered. That is where a scientific theory crystallised into a proven truth.
It is my hope these banners will inspire future generations of physicists to continue to move humanity forward.
Xavier collaboration Cortada with is a scientists. painter based As well in Miami, as his art Florida. installation His art for regularly CERN, involves he has worked with a population geneticist on a project exploring our ancestral journey out of Africa 60,000 years ago, with a molecular biologist to synthesise DNA from participants visiting his museum exhibit, and with botanists on eco-art projects. He estimates his installation at the South Pole using a moving ice sheet as an instrument to mark time will be completed in 150,000 years. www.cortada.com