Sketch for ‘Symmetry Break’, 2009

Steel chain and mixed media

17” x 20” x 8” (43 cm x 51 cm x 20 cm)

The spontaneous breaking of symmetry is a phenomenon that is ubiquitous in nature. In physics those situations are described by an energy landscape, called a potential that goes from having only one minimum (the lowest energy configuration to which the system is driven towards) to having more than one minimum. The appearance of a second minimum forces the system to ‘make a decision’ which minimum it will occupy. Seen from the outside, the system suddenly flips into a new state. In this sculptural sketch, I used pieces of chain that go from a physically possible hanging configuration to configurations that seem to violate the laws of physics more and more. The initial hanging curve gets penetrated from below with a narrower curve such that the chain successively develops two minima. This evolution suggests something miraculous, similar to the surprising and counter-intuitive phenomenon of symmetry breaking.