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M.C. Escher and CP Violation

Posted in Art, Maynooth, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , on April 28, 2026 by telescoper

I’ve had these pictures for quite a while and can’t remember where I got them from, but I used to show them in my lectures on Theoretical Particle Physics when I was in Nottingham to illustrate CP-violation and used them in this morning’s lecture at Maynooth.

The following picture by M.C. Escher is called Day and Night:

If you look at it you can see two kinds of symmetry emerging. One is a kind of reflection symmetry about a vertical axis drawn through the centre of the picture that applies to shapes but not to colour. The other is between black and white. But it is obvious that the picture doesn’t display these symmetries separately: to get a picture unchanged from the original you would have to do the mirror reflection and change black to white (and vice-versa).

The mirror reflection in the image can be taken to represent parity (P). Strictly speaking parity refers to a reflection through the origin in 3D rather than a mirror reflection, but it’s just for illustration. We know that a parity symmetry is violated in weak interactions just as it is in the picture.

The other possible symmetry, between black and white can be taken to represent charge-conjugation (C), the operation that converts particles into anti-particles and vice-versa.

While P is not an exact symmetry of weak interactions, it was long thought that the combination of C and P (CP) would be. Actually it isn’t. The story of the discovery of CP-violation is fascinating but I don’t have time to go into it here. It suffices to say that the Escher print also displays CP violation.

First lets do `C’, i.e. convert black to white and vice-versa. The result is:

Now reflect about the vertical mid-line to illustrate `P’:

If `CP’ were an exact symmetry then that image would be identical to the original, which I reproduce here:

You can see, however, that while some elements of the picture do look the same after this combined operation (e.g. the birds), others (e.g. the buildings at the bottom) do not. Although CP is not an exact symmetry of this picture, it is almost (just like it is in particle physics).

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The Red Disk – Joan Miró

Posted in Art with tags , , , on April 24, 2026 by telescoper

The Red Disk by Joan Miró (1960, Oil on Canvas, 45.7 × 54.9 cm, New Orleans Museum of Art).

From here:

Set against a dark blue, almost black surface, a white splotch of paint has been hurled out impulsively, and loses itself in innumerable spots and spatters, a cosmic gesture thrust against the empty void of nothingness – almost a metaphor of the artist’s creative activity. Some spots of colour flare up among this galaxy of creativity, of which the largest and most irregular is the red one which gave the painting its title. Minute symbols are scattered around the edges of the entire constellation – stars of hair and little hooks which give this action painting a new poetic dimension and connect it unmistakably with Miro’s world of symbols.

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Estella Solomons

Posted in Art, History with tags , , , , on April 20, 2026 by telescoper

Following yesterday’s post about the 1926 Irish Census I fell down a metaphorical rabbit hole following a request from a former colleague (who happens to be Jewish) to help find a relative of his who lived in Dublin at the time of the census. I found the person, which was nice, but was then sent this article  about an unrelated lady called Estella Solomons who was on the rebel side in the Easter Rising and helped the cause by hiding weapons in her garden.  It turns out that there was a significant Jewish presence in Dublin back then. In the North Side, around Portobello, there was an area dubbed ‘Little Jerusalem’.

Estella Solomons, self-portrait

I hadn’t heard of Estella Solomons before yesterday but she was a significant artist whose work was featured in an exhibition at the National Gallery in Dublin in 2022 (which I did not see). There is also a Wikipedia page about her. I found the above self-portrait online. I find it very striking.

Estella Solomons was born in 1882 and died in 1968 at the age of 86. She was 34 at the time of the Easter Rising and would have been 44 at the time of the 1926 census. I did find her in the online census but her age is recorded as 40. She married the poet Seumas O’Sullivan in 1926 but she is listed as “single” on the census form, so presumably they married later in the year.

There are two other women at her 1926 address, both servants, so she was obviously quite well off, but no sign of her husband.

More surprisingly Estella’s sex is given in the 1926 census as Male. She is in the 1911 census too, but recorded there as Female. I did consider the possibility that she might have been living as a man, but that does not fit with other details of her life. I think it is just a mistake.  Such records are not entirely free from errors.

I think this an example of the sort of confusion historians have to contend with when looking at historical documents!

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Naomh Pádraig – Séamus Murphy

Posted in Art, Maynooth with tags , , , on March 23, 2026 by telescoper

I’ve walked past this imposing head of St Patrick countless times since I arrived in Maynooth, seven and a half years ago, but it was only last week that I found out a bit about it.

The statue is called Naomh Patrick (Saint Patrick) and it was created by Irish sculptor Séamus Murphy. It is on public view in St Patrick’s House, Maynooth, just inside the main entrance. It is made of polished limestone and was first unveiled in 1949. Here is an old newspaper article in which the photograph on the right shows the artist beside the sculpture…

(The picture on the left seems to show the artist, on the far left, dozing off during a speech…)

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Horizon, Zenith and Atmosphere – Paul Klee

Posted in Art with tags , , , on March 11, 2026 by telescoper

Horizont, Gipfelpunkt und Atmosphäre by Paul Klee (1925, watercolor and graphite on paper, 37.1 x 27 cm, Guggenheim, New York)

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Snowdrops – Lillias Mitchell

Posted in Art with tags , on February 11, 2026 by telescoper

Snowdrops by Lillias Mitchell (1929, watercolour on paper, 29 x 34 cm, National Gallery of Ireland); painted when the artist, who lived from 1915 to 2000, was 14 years old.

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Cosmic Spring I – František Kupka

Posted in Art with tags , , , on February 3, 2026 by telescoper

Cosmis Spring I (Cosmic Spring I)  by František Kupka (1913/4, oil on canvas, 115 x 125 cm, National Gallery of Prague).

Adapted from the Gallery catalogue:

František Kupka (1871-1957) wrote in his book Tvoření v umění výtvarném (Creation in Visual Art), that he did not seek to copy nature but sought inspiration in varied shapes of nature such as ice crystals, flower buds, freezing vapour, clouds, airflow, and falling stars. Kupka was fascinated by shape analogies which he found in various levels of microstructures and macrostructures – from microphotographs of cells to astronomical photographs of planets.

(Posted because, of course, 1st February was the first day of Spring…)

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The Exam Room – Cyril E. Power

Posted in Art with tags , , , , on January 15, 2026 by telescoper

The Exam Room by Cyril E. Power (c. 1934, linocut, 26.6 x 38.2 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; not on display)

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December 31st – Richard Hoffman

Posted in Art, Poetry with tags , , , , , , on December 31, 2025 by telescoper 
All my undone actions wander
naked across the calendar,
 
a band of skinny hunter-gatherers,
blown snow scattered here and there,
 
stumbling toward a future
folded in the New Year I secure
 
with a pushpin: January’s picture
a painting from the 17th century,
 
a still life: Skull and mirror,
spilled coin purse and a flower.

by Richard Hofmann (b. 1949) from his collection Emblem.

I don’t know precisely which picture the poet is referring to for January in his calendar, nor which artist, but it it is undoubtedly an example of a Vanitas or Memento Mori, a genre symbolizing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death, and thus the vanity of ambition and all worldly desires. The paintings involved still life imagery of items suggessting the transitory nature of life.

A couple of examples are here:

Between them you find all the elements mentioned in the poem: the skull represents death, the flowers impermanence, the coins personal wealth and the other items worldly knowledge and pleasure. There’s an interesting WordPress blog about the symbolism this genre here:

Inspiration – Vanitas Painting and the Symbolism of Objects

P.S. My own calendar has pictures of tractors in it.

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Alegoría del Invierno – Remedios Varo

Posted in Art with tags , , , , , on December 29, 2025 by telescoper

Alegoría del Invierno (Allegory of Winter) by Remedios Varo Uranga, 1948, gouache on paper, 44 ×44 cm, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain.

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