Random Sphere II, by Eric J. Heller

  Find out more about this and other physics images by Eric J. Heller online at Resonance Fine Art.

About this image:

Random Sphere I and Random Sphere II show random superpositions of waves on the surface of a sphere. Random waves are the paradigm for quantum chaos. This is as close as quantum mechanics can come to chaos. Classical chaos amounts to trajectories heading in every possible direction randomly; corresponding to this is the random addition of wave sets traveling in all directions. The particle executing the trajectory has a definite energy which corresponds to the waves all having the same wavelength. The result is the type of wave shown here, with characteristics not discovered until about 1986.

There is an eerie familiarity with the strange and yet strangely familiar structures you see in random waves. Knowing that chaos is the norm in nature, especially at the level of molecular motion, and knowing that everything is really quantum and that random waves are the quantum manifestation of chaos, it is perhaps not too melodramatic to say that we are made of the stuff you see in Random Wave II.