The Machine That Goes Ping
Juliet Nolan
Artwork Part of ‘Chaos‘ (Issue 21)
The Science
On 4th Feb I was drinking my morning coffee when I was struck by an article in the Independent newspaper. Zlatko Papic, from the University of Leeds, a lead author on the paper referenced, said: "The fundamental constants could instantaneously change and the world as we know it would collapse like a house of cards". I drew the cartoon that day, thinking so many terrible things were happening that perhaps we needed the universe to reshape itself. Since then the chaos has only intensified, with America’s institutions and global standing being dismantled, at the same time as more evidence of the perniciousness of the nature crisis is being revealed (plastic in our brains, PFAS in our placentas). I'm left wondering if maybe what the study predicted has actually happened.
Jaka Vodeb, Jean-Yves Desaules, Andrew Hallam, Andrea Rava, Gregor Humar, Dennis Willsch, Fengping Jin, Madita Willsch, Kristel Michielsen, Zlatko Papić. Stirring the false vacuum via interacting quantized bubbles on a 5,564-qubit quantum annealer. Nature Physics, 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41567-024-02765-w)
The Medium
A simple pencil sketch, derived from my imagination. The original is about 5 inches square.
The Artist
Juliet Nolan is a climate and nature activist who lives in London, in the UK. A primary school teacher who also writes and paints, she highlights the passage of environmental legislation through the UK parliment through her alter ego @mpfornature.bsky.social. She explores issues of injustice with a poetic scientist colleague on instagram at science_and_sensibility
Copyright statement. This work is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license