Night Path (detail), 2009

Painted steel and gold thread

18” x 19” x 6” (46 cm x 48 cm x 15 cm)

Night Path was inspired by Richard Feynman’s path integral approach to quantum mechanics. Feynman calculated quantum mechanical probabilities by adding up all the possible paths between two points. He did this by ‘slicing up’ time and filling each slice with a continuum of paths. The path in a quantum mechanical sense only exists if it is not observable; it is really a tendency and not an actual path. When modeling Feynman’s approach on the computer only a small sampling of random paths in the vicinity of the classical trajectory are calculated. For this piece, I started with a parabola, the classical trajectory of a thrown object, and generated random paths around it. In this piece, I am interested in connecting the idea of the quantum mechanical path to the image of a meteor, a rock falling through the dark of the night, often believed to be connected to a meaningful event.