Untitled (Experiment 597)

Since the 19th century, photography has been employed to document scientific phenomena otherwise invisible to the human eye: X-ray photographs revealed bones under flesh, microphotography showed blood cells or the anatomy of insects, and telescopic photography explored the surface of the moon. In more recent years, technological advancements have enabled a range of sophisticated imaging techniques that allow a visual depiction of scientific interactions. This image is an example of a “bubble chamber” particle trace at Fermilab, in which colliding subatomic particles leave a trail in a chamber filled with liquid hydrogen. Scientific evidence of particle composition and behavior can create, for a lay observer, the appearance of an appealing abstraction.