These striking photos are a window into the world of quantum physics

Two nonchalant physicists, one with a wry smile, monitor one of the UK’s most advanced quantum technologies, an ultra-stable laser at the National Physical Laboratory in London. This enigmatic photograph, taken by photographer David Severn as part of a series of photographs for the Quantum Untangled exhibition at King’s College London, was also shortlisted for the Portrait of Britain prize.

“The portrait offers a rare glimpse into a world usually hidden. It is as if the viewer has just opened the usually forbidden door to his laboratory,” explains Severn. Although the image is contemporary, the scientists and their interactions with the machines could date from decades ago, he says, echoing iconography of the past like that of submarine operators in the 1940s or workers operating cotton spinning machines at the turn of the century.

Severn, who had no prior knowledge of quantum mechanics before embarking on the project and was on a mission to capture the people and labs working with quantum physics in the UK today, says that as he worked, the quantum world of uncertainty and logical contradiction began to seem strangely aligned with the way artists see the world.

“Much of the work of scientists was beyond my detailed understanding, but I found that concepts like superposition and quantum entanglement resonated with me almost intuitively, in a way that seemed closer to artistic perception than formal explanation,” he says.

Severn’s photos capture a piece of modern quantum physics from a practical perspective, such as the 3D-printed helmet (above) housing quantum sensors that use magnetic fields to image the brain, or the labyrinthine laser table overseen by Hartmut Grote of Cardiff University, below, which verifies that the vacuum pump that keeps the system intact is still working.

Many of Severn’s photos lean toward the mysterious, like the 3D-printed imaging helmet worn by a researcher at the University of Nottingham’s Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Center (first image below) or the complex array of pumps and mirrors (second image below) that are used to keep the optical equipment clean in Grote’s experiment. This, Severn says, is intentional.

“One of my favorite photographers, Diane Arbus, said, ‘A photograph is the secret of a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know.’ I realized that quantum physics works in much the same way,” says Severn. “Just when we think we understand the behavior of a beam of light, the quantum world turns our expectations upside down, revealing the rules hidden beneath the reality we thought we knew.”

The exhibition, Quantum Untangled, is on display at the Science Gallery at King’s College London until February 28. Quantum Untangled is an adaptation of Cosmic Titans: Art, Science and the Quantum Universe, a touring exhibition from Lakeside Arts and ARTlab at the University of Nottingham.