JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
Malevich it isn't, though pre-Abstract art pre-Malevich it may be:
There are some good papers in this 1902 volume of Annalen der Physik, including Planck ("Ueber die Natur des weissen Lichts his paper on white light), Stark, Quincke, Drude, Exner ("Ueber den Gleichgewichtszustand eines schweren Gases")--I was drawn instead to the two big folding plates for O. Lehmann's "Gasentladungen in weiten Gefassen" ( a longish 29-page paper in series IV, vol 7. pp 1-29, 1902.).
Interestingly Lehmann writes about the dangers involved with these experiments--he's using considerable pieces of glassware, some 40cm wide and 60 cm long (!) with glass as thick as 5-10 mm. That means there would be (and was!) a lot of large pieces of flying glass if the vacuum created in the tube crushed it, resulting in a sharp little explosion. He states (more or less) at the bottom of the page in a footnote: " “The experiments are brilliant demonstration experiments at the same time, but it must be expressly pointed out that working with such large evacuated vessels is by no means without danger. It was shown that the 5–10 mm thick air pump bells with an internal width of more than 40 cm, which are commercially available, are unable to withstand the pressure of the outside air permanently. Such an egg, 40 cm wide and over 1 m long, was smashed by the air pressure soon after the vacuum was created, fortunately without causing any further damage, since I had covered it with thick cloths as a precaution, which did not allow the glass fragments to penetrate , Another vessel, 45 cm wide and 60 cm long, the parts of which had initially been individually tested for strength, withstood the full air pressure for about 6 hours, even during the passage of the discharges. But after it had stood untouched for about 5 hours, it was suddenly violently crushed into countless small fragments that flew up to 15 m, partly through the window panes. All fragile objects hit were damaged and individual pieces of glass even bored into the wooden doors of cupboards and other wooden parts, with such force that they got stuck in them.”
Anyway the patterns of discharges produced in the tubes were beautiful and can certainly stand on their own in the Found Art department. And so far as the Annalen goes, this is some of the most visually beautiful work produced by the journal over its long 220 year history.
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