Cathedrals of the Scientific Age

Victor Weisskopf, noted physicist and former director-general of CERN, considered particle accelerators the "gothic cathedrals of the 20th century."  I imagine he was thinking of the similarities of scale and collective effort and expense involved in their construction.  Perhaps he considered them both to be places where the sacred and the mysterious were joined in a quest for the illumination of knowledge.   Certainly a reaction of awe is a natural response.

I have been inspired by this analogy.  In some of my pictures of the Large Hadron Collider, I have made more or less implicit reference to the church-like spaces of the LHC detectors.  This is particularly evident in images of the early stages of construction, where the massive detector halls are yet to be filled with massive machinery.   The access tunnels to the surface stand above the space, casting a heavenly glow.

Jonathan Feldschuh, Large Hadron Collider #24, pencil and acrylic on mylar, 36" x 84", 2009
 

Compare this to the conventions of interior church views as seen in these examples of 17th century Dutch paintings:

Jonathan Feldschuh, Large Hadron Collider #19, pencil and acrylic on mylar, 36" x 84", 2008

- Jonathan Feldschuh, 4/11/2013