As part of Imperial College’s Late event on the theme of ‘Tiny Science’ we ran a new experiment. We asked: Can we communicate deep and beautiful ideas about Nature through dancing, and can it be infectious and joyful?
We decided to share how much of the colour in the world has its origins in the oscillations of atoms and molecules. They are like tiny musical instruments, but instead of emitting notes of sound, they emit notes of colour. Each atom has its own unique set of colours which it loves to absorb and emit. When arranged against the full rainbow spectrum of light these colour notes look like a beautiful barcode.
The atomic spectrum of neon atoms, shown against the full rainbow spectrum of sunlight.
Participants viewed atomic spectra and then donned headphones to hear from physicists how they are formed. Then contemporary dance artists Emma and Yanaëlle showed everyone how to become hydrogen atoms absorbing and emitting mellow red, swinging green or hummingbird high frequency blue light*.
After the introductions to atomic physics and contemporary dance, everyone was released to choose their light colours and dance. The floor was filled with dancers – their headphones glowing red, green or blue, signalling their music choices.
People told us the event was: disinhibiting, awesome, amazing, groovy, super, brilliant, and fantastic.
Our heads are filled with future experiments for imagining Nature through joyful dance.
If you’d like to experiment at home, the soundtracks to the colours are on Spotify here: Red, Green, Blue
Thank you to: everyone who came, Imperial Public Engagement Team, Imperial’s Centre for Cold Matter, Imperial physicists Rhys Jenkins, Stefan Popa, Bryony Lanigan and Isabel Rabey, and dance artists Emma Bellerby and Yanaëlle Thiran.
Hydrogen atoms actually emit red, greeny-blue and bluey-purple light, but we used red, green and blue for simplicity
Event photography © Brendan Foster .