(Fremont, Nebraska, 1903 - 1990, Cambridge, Massachusetts)
A .22 Caliber Bullet Passing through the Hot Air above a Candle
- 1973
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Photograph
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Color Schlieren photograph (showing thermal and shock waves)
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96 in. x 40 in. (243.84 cm x 101.6 cm)
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Gift of the Artist's Estate.
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Bldg. 10 corridor (near Bush Room, 10-105)
Doc Edgerton's technical genius introduced a new dimension to the history of photography and contributed greatly to the tools with which aesthetics, nature, and science could be visually realized. He invented and developed a strobe-light technique and the electric flash, which allowed the photography of instants of time previously impossible to capture. His photographs of shattering glass, drops of milk, and the impact of bullets were appreciated not only by the scientific community, but by the general public and the art world; they were not only marvels of events brought to sight but formally beautiful in their own right. Another technique, developed by J. Kim Vandiver under Edgerton, was the method of color schlieren photography (schlieren meaning "streak") which was capable of capturing disruption in gasses, including the effects of shock waves. The best known photographs using this technique may be Edgerton and Vandiver's bullet photographs, usually produced by a .22 caliber, single-shot rifle. In this image, we see the passage of a bullet through the gasses produced by a candle flame, an event impossible to observe with the naked eye. J. Kim Vandiver has been MIT's Dean for Undergraduate Research, Director of the Edgerton Center, and Director of MIT's Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. In 1992 he founded the Edgerton Center at MIT, which provides resources for MIT students engaged in hands-on educational projects.
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