Inverted Atoll

I am applying my quadrant scheme to inverted diffraction art – looking at the same virtual, three-dimensional structure from four different viewing angles!

This ‘atoll’ is built from mathematically exact diffraction curves – wavy lines, mounted on a circle! I am creating diffraction art with javascript, based on the framework threejs, no AI image generator involved.

In the center of the structure is a hypothetical diffraction grating with 4 slits, 330 nanometers wide, 4500 nanometers apart. These are realistic parameters from the perspective of physics. Beams of white light hit the slits, light is diffracted into pure spectral colors.

There are 200 lines: I am walking through the spectrum of colors in 200 steps. Line of each wavelength would be captured on a cylindrical screen of a different radius.

To create a rounded overall shape, I am scaling the height of the curves with the intensity of blackbody radiation, as the sun – emitting the hypothetical white light – can be considered a blackbody.

This was the physics part! Now, for the art part!

I am inverting the pure spectral colors. Probably an alien from a foreign galaxy would see the colors like this.

I do not simulate diffraction patterns as you would see them – blurry stripes of colors. I use the shape of the the mathematical curves that describe these blurry stripes.

I have started to created physics-inspired art using concepts from optics and the theory of diffraction, maybe because a long time ago optics was a specialty of mine. But this is one of the few fields in physics where vibrant colors make sense and are “correct”! The pick of colors is not an arbitrary choice for the sake of a nice and easy-to-understand technical visualization. I am showing a peak where the center of a stripe in the diffraction pattern would be in an experiment. This makes the artistic representation similar to the natural phenomenon but not exactly the same! Call me easily entertained, but I find this an endlessly fascinating idea.

I look at the structure from different angles and at different distances. Like a space probe exploring a weird, colorful anomaly in space. There are Moiré effects and irregularities, maybe even potential rendering errors where too many lines overlap. All of that is semi-intentional.

The whole structure is an “atoll”: I completed the circle by combining two half circles. So, white light would hit the grating from two directions, 180° apart.

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The original image is 6600×6600 pixels – about 83MB as a jpg image.

Two close-ups of different parts in the original resolution:

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