It’s easy to take physics for granted, after all it’s all around us, constantly governing how everything interacts. Despite this – or perhaps because of it – most of us go about our daily lives without thinking about it. We rarely contemplate the principles that we rely on for the world to behave as we expect it to.
If you want to break out of this obliviousness – if only temporarily – then take a moment to admire the winning entries in the IUPAP100 photo contest. The competition was organized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) “to celebrate the beauty of physics and the fun that can be encountered in its practice”.
The winning photos were presented last week during IUPAP’s centennial symposium in Trieste, Italy. In each category, there were prizes for first, second and third place, and a further three honourable mentions.
The first category, “at a glance”, included photographs taken with a camera. Some of these capture physical phenomena like surface tension in a visually striking way. Others showcase various physics projects, from major international experiments to education initiatives bringing science to people in remote corners of the world.
The winner in this category was “chasing ghost particles at the South Pole” (main image) by Yuya Makino, a researcher working on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which is based in Antarctica.
In 2020, Makino worked as one of two “winterovers” – collaborators who spend a year at the South Pole operating the telescope facility. The photo shows him walking towards the facility, following a trail of flags that are placed as a guide for the winterovers, in case of extremely harsh weather conditions.
The breathtaking backdrop shows the starry sky and the Aurora Australis. This photo simultaneously exhibits the beauty of astronomical phenomena and humans’ extraordinary endeavours to explore nature.
Drying drops
The second category, “beyond our eyes”, included images taken using special photographic techniques, such as scanning electron microscopy. These images reveal phenomena that we can’t see in day-to-day life, taking us on a trip deeper into what’s going on in the world around us.
The winner in this category is “anatomy of a drying drop” (see below) by Paul Lilin, a PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Though visually captivating, at first sight it’s difficult to identify what this photo is. A spherical shape appears to glow in orange and pink, with a pattern of lines curving outwards from an off-centre point, and smaller lines segmenting the outer edge.
The photo is in fact a drop of water with nanoparticles suspended in it, left to dry on a glass surface and imaged from below. As the water evaporates, the nanoparticles rearrange, eventually leaving a solid deposit covering the area when the drop is fully dried. The fascinating physics behind the nanoparticle patterns can help to explain craquelures (fine cracking) seen in old paintings.
IUPAP: uniting physicists for the last 100 years
IUPAP’s centennial celebrations are linked with the UNESCO International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD2022). Some of the IUPAP100 photos were displayed outside UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris in a public exhibition at the opening of the IYBSSD.
A photo that received an honourable mention in the “at a glance” category was even chosen as the cover photo of UNESCO’s IYBSSD2022 Exhibition Book. The photo, “Raman spectroscopy of solids”, shows the photographer, David Lockwood, aligning bright green lasers in his lab.
You can see all winning entries and honourable mentions here.