Entries for the #genuary2021 generative art challenge.

• MAGNETIC_BREATH

• FLAMBOYANT_QUASICRYSTAL

• AUDIO_PORTRAITS

• GREAT_CLASSIC

Entry for:
> JAN.08 | Curve only.
> JAN.18 | One process grows, another process prunes.
> JAN.24 | 500 lines.

What you see is the evolution of the quantum energy levels of a diatomic Hubbard chain as a periodically fluctuating electron-electron interaction drives a magnetic transition. Horizontal axis represents the degree of ionicity of the material ( let's say "how much the two atoms are different"); the vertical axis counts just the mean-field energy of single electrons (albeit all correlated by their repulsion, we approximately describe each electron as independent on the others, but "drawn in a averaged nebula of negative charge", which accounts for all his fellows). There are two types of electrons, namely the spin-up and spin-down ones. The discriminant is an opposite intrinsic magnetic field. We disintinguish them by colors, as much as one conventionally does with north and south poles of a macroscopic magnet! Whenever you see a mixed violet color, opposite electronic spins are physically indistinguishable and you have a completely demagnetized chain. If instead you can distinguish the red and blue colors, the two spin-families are behaving differently and thus some magnetism is happening in the material! Hence the title: magnetic breath.

About the #genuary prompts:

• Curve only is pretty much self-evident: a solid-state "band-structure" is made of just curves.
• One process grows, another process prunes is more interesting: I refer here to the progressive expansion of the magnetic phase, at the expense of the demagnetized one. And viceversa.
• 500 lines may appear trivial, but it's not: here you see exactly 500 lines, but the true number of quantum levels is not 500. If you'd happen to plot all the 10⁴ lines you'll get a nasty mess of aliased crap. If you instead enforce physically the number of levels to be 500 (which amounts to making way shorter the diatomic chain), you'll dive in the realm of nanostructures, with highly discretized physics, and will lost all the nice smoothness of the plot. Aestethics demands a proper subset of 500 "representative" levels. So I claim to have strongly satisfied also this prompt :D

Finally, if you want to read more about the physics behind this divertissement, consider to take a look here. Enjoy!

Entry for:
> JAN.04 | Small areas of symmetry.
> JAN.06 | Triangle subdivision.
> JAN.13 | Do not repeat.
> JAN.23 | #264653 #2a9d8f #e9c46a #f4a261 #e76f51, no gradients.

Entries for:
> JAN.03 | Something human.
> JAN.14 | // SUBDIVISION
> JAN.28 | Use sound.

her & me

self-portrait

Entry for:
Jan.09 | Interference patterns.
Jan.19 | Increase the randomness along the y-axis.
Jan.27 | Monochrome gradients without lines.
Jan.30 | Replicate a natural concept.

Here I end my personal journey with the #genuary initiative. It has been a lot interesting for me, giving the opportunity to really learn a lot of stuff that normally I don't make time to explore. What else to say... I'm really happy about the results, despite all them clearly being newbie stuff, and I truly look forward to the next ride!

So, as a closure, I wanted to properly address one of the most interesting prompts, for a scientist: the great game of emulating nature. I didn't really want to attack the most obvious and visited phenomena, like flocking, fluid-dynamics etcetera... so I ended returning to a good old friend, which never ends to intrigue me at the deepest level: elementary quantum mechanics. I simulated, by means of a pretty basic Montecarlo scheme, the infamous double slit experiment, which showcases beautifully all the key ingredients of a quantum theory: you have point-like particles being detected at a fluorescente screen, after passing through a double-slit obstacle. Classically you'd expect to see just the to 'shades' of the slits, with a slight smearing due to setup uncertainties: this is what you see in yellow. In the quantum world (in green) you have a strikingly different scenario: an interference pattern, in appearance totally disconnected from the two-slit structure(!) and most shockingly emerging from single point-like traces on the screen, so they are still particles, after all. A magnificent puzzle that has pushed humanity very far in the understanding of our universe. You see then, it's really a great classic.

If you are wondering why I'm including gradients and claim that to correspond to an increase of randomness: I just modulated along y the 'brightness' of the particle-beam and, since quantum measurements are governed by the mighty laws of statistics, this way I could actually increase the overall stochastic noise of the pattern by just reducing the rate of particles impacting the screen. I liked very much the idea of not controlling explicitly the degree of randomness, but letting it emerge from the oldie large number principle. Loved it :)