Event 4: Griffith Observatory

My visit to the Griffith Observatory was nothing short of spectacular. I have visited the Griffith before and I have been enthralled by all the knowledge and beauty. However this time round, my experience was quite different. I began to notice, all around me, the integration and overlap of science and art.

Just as one enters, one sees the Observatory Pendulum, a 240-pound giant brass sphere suspended from a 40-foot steel wire. At first glance this looks like nothing more than just a beautiful oscillating pendulum. However, one quickly realizes that this is not simply a piece of art. A ring magnet above the ceiling keeps the pendulum in motion, without influencing the direction of its swing. Every ten minutes the pendulum knocks over a peg, but in fact it is not the pendulum that has moved over to hit the peg. The earth has moved the peg into the path of the swinging pendulum. The pendulum is essentially disconnected from the turning of the earth and the earth rotes beneath it, making it look as if the pendulum is changing the direction of its swing. I thought it was so fascinating how much of artistic thought and effort has gone into building this scientific object.

At the Griffith Observatory, one can also see the largest astronomical image to ever be put on display called the Big Picture. It is an astronomical photograph of a small sliver of the night sky and embedded in the Big Picture are thousands of stars from our own Milky Way Galaxy. Looking at this I could not help but think about how its creation was the result of the two disciplines of art and science working together. While astronomers and scientists were required to observe, study and plot the night sky, it was the duty of the artists to perfectly capture and recreate what they had observed. If not for the astronomers/scientists and the artists, the Big Picture would never have been created with such accuracy and perfection.

The earth experiences four seasons because our planet is tipped on its axis and the two poles point to the same direction in space all year. Summer occurs on the hemisphere that is tipped towards the sun and our seasonal weather depends on where we live. While I was always aware of this knowledge, it was only now that I started thinking about how fascinating it was that a purely scientific phenomenon is used by artists to convey emotion in their works, be it in paintings, movies or short stories. Winter is used to convey a sense of gloom and despair, summer suggests joy and freedom. Never before had I really given much thought to this.

The last thing that I thought was super interesting was that countless meteorites fall to the earth every year. However finding and identifying them is tricky. While meteorite hunters are undoubtedly scientists, they can also be considered subtle artists. Recognizing a meteorite is an art because not all strange-looking rocks are meteorites. The meteorite hunters must study the shape, size, surface, etc. of the rock to determine whether or not it came from space.

This time round, my visit to the Griffith Observatory was completely different. It was for the first time that I recognized how much of art exists even in the context of space and the endless universe!