Hydrogen, as you’ve never seen it

This is Hydrogen, as visualised by young Australian artists Damon Kowarsky and Hyunju Kim.

In 2017, Kowarsky was commissioned by Quantum Victoria, a government-funded centre established to promote excellence in STEM education, to create an installation that would imagine “the birth of the universe through the lens of the Periodic Table”.

The Centre’s director, Soula Bennett, worked with him to select elements that came into existence in the early universe, along with famous scientists who would be generally familiar to students. Each piece had to include not only the element’s symbol and atomic number, but also scientifically relevant information about its properties and use.

After extensive research, Kowarsky hand drew each piece before sending them to Kim to complete the colour.

The full set of 51 was launched in the Victorian capital, Melbourne, on 18 July, to coincide with celebrations for both The International Year of the Periodic Table (IYPT19) and the Apollo 11 moon landing.

You can see them all here.