Vers le haut
Vers le bas
BOHR Niels Henrik David

Dates : 1885 - 1962
Places : Danemark
Topics : Quantum Mechanics

And if the cubism was also related to the other great physical theory of the XXe century, the
quantum mechanics?

In the office that he occupied during the Thirties, Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist principal founder of this theory, had indeed hung a cubist painting, "the Rider", of Jean Metzinger, 1911. Metzinger is seen as a minor cubist artist, but as a major theorist of this movement, via his book of the Cubism dated from 1912.

Arthur Miller * deduces from it that "the interest of Bohr for the cubism was anchored more in the writings of Metzinger than in his Article"

However, the principle of the cubism theorized by Metzinger, according to which a body must be represented under every angles, is rather close to the idea developed by Niels Bohr during the Twenties to understand the disturbing behavior of the atom. According to his principle of "complementarity", the atom must be simultaneously seen like a wave and a particle, these two faces being complementary. The cubist painting of Metzinger would have had a true interest for Bohr. Mogens Anderson, an artist close to the Danish scientist, remembers the pleasure to give "a form to the thoughts to the people, initially unable to see anything in this painting." The conceptual revolution carried out by the artists at the beginning of century, can be used as a guide for the thought of the new world of the infinitely small.

Conclusion of Arthur MILLER, "If the cubism is the result of the science in Art, the quantum theory is the result of the art in science."

Reference:
* Bohr: Space, Time and the beauty that Havoc Causes
Arthur MILLER (BASIC Books, 2001)

In the office of Niels Bohr, was hanging a cubist painting, an homage of the quantum world to the modern art.


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