Photos of the Inside of a Particle Accelerator

I’ve posted before about Charles Brooks’ fantastic series of photographs of the insides of musical instruments. Recently, Brooks had the opportunity to apply his technique to capture the innards of a particle accelerator.

Brooks says of the photo:

Despite being a scientific instrument, it behaves a lot like a musical instrument. Electrons pulse through this tunnel in tight, synchronized waves. The powerful magnets above and below make them undulate — just like the vibrating string of a fine cello — creating an intense X-ray beam used to probe hidden structures of our world.

As part of the project, accelerator physicist Eugene Tan converted the pulsing of the electrons in the chamber into sound, “letting us hear the movement of electrons at nearly the speed of light”.

Petapixel has a lot more on how this image was captured.

“This was an instant yes for me,” Brooks tells PetaPixel. “It ticked so many boxes: I’m always drawn to photographing hidden or complex spaces, and this was one of the most intricate objects I could possibly shoot.”

(via colossal)

• audio
• Charles Brooks
• Eugene Tan
• music
• photography
• science