The National Academies Building500 Fifth Street, NW

Washington, DC 20001

Lobby by Larry Kirkland

How does one convey, at the outset of the 21st century, the origins and evolution of human investigation of the world leading to the contributions

to society made by the sciences, medicine, and engineering? This was the task set for artist Larry Kirkland in developing the engraved murals for the

lobby of the National Academies building at 500 Fifth Street, NW, in Washington, DC. This visual encyclopedia encompasses investigation past and

present, and it includes phenomena from the microscopic to the cosmic.

Left WallBeginning on the far left (as one enters from Fifth Street), there are drawings of maize – one from a pre-Columbian pot from Ancient Peru (ca. 2500

to 1800 BC) and others by a contemporary geneticist. They represent a continuum of human invention spanning forty centuries. This important New

World plant, which we know as corn, was produced by the careful breeding of plants by humans. It now feeds a large proportion of the world’s population.

Images that follow on the same wall represent attempts to understand the universe – from Galileo’s star map of 1610, which includes a detailed study

of the moon, to the Lunar Rover designed in 1969 and used during the final three Apollo lunar missions of 1971 and 1972. Attached to the wall is a

meteorite and a tidal rhythmite, a sedimentary rock whose stripes record changing tides hundreds of millions of years ago, providing a visual record of

the moon’s orbit around the earth. Other images illustrate the history of technology. From the abacus and Edison’s 1880 design sketch of an incandescent

light bulb, to the exploration of computer aided artificial intelligence and nanotechnology, inventors have developed tools that benefit society.

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Left wall:

1. The maize plant, commonly knownas corn. To the right, the pollinationof the corn plant. Courtesy of Dr.Walton Galinat.

2. Maize drawing from a Chicama Valleypot, North Coast of Peru, 2500-1800 BC.

3. Corn embryo. Courtesy of Dr.Walton Galinat.

4. Bronze castings showing stages in the evolution of modern maizefrom its ancestors: Teosinte, a tallgrass native to Mexico and CentralAmerica, is compared to the modernhybrids of corn that humans havederived from it through thousands ofyears of plant breeding. Courtesy ofDr.Walton Galinat.

5. The motorized glider developed byOrville and Wilbur Wright and flownon December 17, 1903, in the first controlled, sustained flight in a power-driven airplane.

6. Lunar roving vehicle. Design byBoeing and General Motors, 1969.

7. The world’s largest fully steerableradiotelescope. Robert C. Byrd GreenBank Telescope, National RadioAstronomy Observatory, Greenbank,West Virginia.

08. A tidal rhythmite: A rock producedby sediments in the Precambrianperiod, at a time between 800 mil-lion and 1 billion years ago.Courtesy of Dr. Marjorie Chan.

09. A meteorite: Recovered from a fieldin Namibia in the early 19th century.

10. First star map recorded with the useof a telescope. Galileo Galilei, 1610.

11. Engraving of the sky from Atlas Coelestis

(Celestial Atlas). John Flamsteed andSir James Thornhill, 1729.

12. Map of the far side of the moon.Invisible from the earth, this mapwas created with satellite technologyfrom metric camera photographyduring the Apollo 15, 16, and 17lunar explorations of 1971 and1972.

13. The solar spectrum. The dark lines,first recorded by Joseph Fraunhoferin 1814, were recognized in 1853 tobe indicators of specific chemicalelements.

14. Incandescent light source patentedin 1884. Drawn by Thomas Edison.

15. A double nanotube, a cylindricallyshaped large carbon molecule ofgreat strenght and electrical con-ductivity. Drawing by Matt Frey.

16. Drawing of the crystal structure ofsilicon: This element provides thebasis for constructing the microchipsthat made possible the computer-telecommunications revolution.

17. Bronze casting of a Jacquardpunched card: Developed in theearly 19th century by Joseph Jacquard(1752-1834), this card mechanizedthe weaving of patterns in cloth, and thus some consider it as thefirst stored intelligence. Courtesy of Gene Valenta.

18. A large wafer of silicon used to produce microchips. Courtesy of the Intel Corporation.

19. An abacus: Developed thousands ofyears ago as a tool for computation.

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Center WallTwo themes dominate the black granite wall: biology and medicine in the service of society and our relationship to our environment. One ongoing focus

of medical research is malaria, represented by the parasite that is attacking a human cell in the large circle at the lower left. Spread by mosquitoes, this

disease causes 300 million people each year to become ill and more than a million deaths, primarily in children. The malaria parasite continually evades

new drugs by becoming resistant and is a major target for efforts to create a vaccine. The map of London (1854) represents the investigations of John Snow,

known as the father of public health, who discovered the source of a cholera epidemic to be contaminated water – delivered by a public pump marked

here with a gold dot. The tree branch is that of a Pacific yew, a low growing evergreen that is a natural source for taxol, which has proved beneficial

in the treatment of some cancers. The large Atlantic salmon and the small Northwest Coast Native American drawing of a Pacific salmon reflect the

complex issues relevant to this valuable fish. The problems include transformation of their natural habitat by dams, farming, and forestry practices,

overfishing, decades of stocking of hatchery fish, and the comingling of farm-raised fish with native species.

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Center wall

1. E=mc2: Albert Einstein’s famous equation relating energy (E), mass (m),and the speed of light (c).

2. Map of the incidence of cholera inLondon, 1854. Through observationof the spread of cholera, Dr. JohnSnow discovered its source: waterfrom the Broad Street pump, hereindicated by a gold dot.

3. Bronze casting of a drop of water:Contaminated water spreads cholera.

4. The Anopheles mosquito that spreadsmalaria, illustrated along with thestructures of chloroquine, used inthe treatment of malaria, and ofDDT, used to kill the mosquitoes.

5. A human cell being infected with themalaria parasite: In this drawing ofan electron micrograph, the parasitefills nearly the entire space, with thehuman red cell that is being attackedvisible only at the upper left.Courtesy of Trudy Nicholson.

6. Map showing where the drug chloro-quine has become ineffective in thetreatment of malaria: In the shadedareas, this parasite has evolved a resist-ance to chloroquine.

07. A brain scan produced by magneticresonance imaging: This scan is of a brain tumor patient after anoperation.

08. Bronze casting of a human heart.09. Drawing of a human spine.

Leonardo da Vinci, 1489.10. Analysis of light entering the eye.

From La Dioptrique, by RenéDescartes, 1637.

11. Drawing of the stages of mitosis, or cell division. From The Cell in

Development and Heredity, by EdmundB. Wilson, 1925.

12. A child taking its first steps. Photo by Jerry Hart.

13. A branch from a Pacific yew. Thisevergreen tree, indigenous to thenorthwestern United States, is thesource of the drug taxol used in the treatment of cancer.

14. The molecular structure of taxol.15. Wire frame view of the earth.

Drawing by Matt Frey.16. The Golden Gate Bridge, San

Francisco. Architect Irving F. Morrow.

17. A Pacific salmon, according to a Northwest Coast Native American image.

18. An Atlantic salmon: This species has been endangered by overfishing,habitat destruction, and pollution.

19. A 20-million-year-old fossil of afish. From the Green River fossilbeds spanning Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado.

20. A 40-million-year-old petrifiedDouglas fir tree ring.

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Right WallThe theme of our relation to the environment continues in the third wall. The Golden Gate Bridge celebrates both a feat of engineering, as well as the

human will to shape the environment. The internal combustion engine benefits society but raises myriad problems by burning fossil fuels. The graph

shows the continuing increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, as measured by Charles Keeling, who began taking measurements in the 1950s. A chemical

model of octane, a major component of gasoline, casts a shadow on the graph. Other images celebrate our evolving knowledge of the storage and

replication of hereditary information, recognizing Darwin, Mendel, and 20th-century research on DNA. By observing the beaks of the finches shown,

Charles Darwin concluded that the species had evolved to accommodate the varieties of available food. Among the images inscribed on the double

helix of DNA are a chimpanzee (whose DNA is closest to humans), a gingko leaf, and a fruit fly. The bronze pea pod commemorates the experiments by

the Austrian monk Gregor Mendel (1822-84), which led to the conclusion that inherited traits are determined by a combination of genes. The metal

plate on the far right is an X-ray photograph of crystalline DNA obtained by Rosalind Franklin (1920-58), whose research was crucial in helping

James Watson and Francis Crick to discover the double-helical structure of DNA in 1953.

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Right Wall

1. The Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco.Architect Irving F. Morrow.

2. Satellite image showing the polar icecap and the depletion of the earth’sozone layer. Courtesy NASA and Dr Richards McPeters.

3. A molecular model of octane, a majorcomponent of gasoline.

4. A plot showing the changes in atmos-pheric carbon dioxide concentrationover time. Courtesy of Charles D.Keeling and Timothy Whorf.

5. An internal combustion engine: TheOffenhauser cylinder block was usedin race cars. This image is taken froma 1952 illustration.

6. Finches from the Galapagos Islands,showing the adaptation of their beaksto the food supply of various envi-ronments. Charles Darwin, 1839.

7. The molecular structure of the doublehelix of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid),superimposed with: a. A chimpanzee, whose DNA most

closely approximates that of humans.7. b. A fruit fly. The extensive genetic

analysis of Drosophila melanogaster inthe 20th century has revealed manydetails of DNA function.

7. c. A gingko leaf. Sometimes called a“living fossil,” this plant hasremained essentially unchanged for200 million years.

7. d. The Mamo bird, an extinctHawaiian species.

7. e. The Destroying Angel fungus,Amanita virosa.

7. f. A tube worm from the bottom ofthe ocean. Living in a unique ecosys-tem, these worms get their nourish-ment from bacterial symbionts thatharness chemical energy from min-erals in the hot vent water.

7. g. Bronze cast of a pod of the peaplant. This organism was studied byGregor Mendel (1822-84) to revealthe basic principles of heredity.

7. h. A tortoise and a hare: The fablereminds the artist of the nature of the scientific process.

7. i. Bronze cast of a lab rat: Thisorganism is frequently used tostudy biological mechanisms common to humans.

8. An X-ray photograph of crystallineDNA. Rosalind Franklin, 1952.

Equations

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Wall:

Einstein’s Equation E = mc2

The fundamental relationship con-necting energy, mass, and the speed oflight emerges from Einstein’s theoryof special relativity, published in 1905.Showing the equivalence of mass andenergy, it may be the most famous andbeautiful equation in all of modernscience. Its power was graphicallydemonstrated less than four decadeslater with the discovery of nuclear fis-sion, a process in which a smallamount of mass is converted to a verylarge amount of energy, precisely inaccord with this equation.

Floor:

1. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty PrincipleWerner Heisenberg’s matrix formu-lation of quantum mechanics led himto discover in 1927 that an irreducibleuncertainty exists when simultaneouslymeasuring the position and momentumof an object. Unlike classical mechanics,quantum mechanics requires that themore accurately the position of an objectis known, the less accurately its momen-tum is known, and vice versa. The mag-nitude of that irreducible uncertainty isproportional to Planck’s constant.

2. Einstein’s Field EquationEinstein’s elegant equation publishedin 1916 is the foundation for his theoryof gravity, the theory of general rela-tivity. The equation relates the geo-metrical curvature of space-time tothe energy density of matter. Thetheory constructs an entirely newpicture of space and time, out ofwhich gravity emerges in the form ofgeometry and from which Newton’stheory of gravity emerges as a limitingcase. Einstein’s field equationexplains many features of moderncosmology, including the expansionof the universe and the bending ofstar light by matter, and it predictsblack holes and gravitational waves.He introduced a cosmological constantin the equation, which he called hisgreatest blunder, but that quantity maybe needed if, as recent observationssuggest, the expansion of the universeis accelerating. A remaining challengefor physicists in the 21st century is toproduce a fundamental theory unitinggravitation and quantum mechanics.

3. Schrödinger EquationIn 1926, Erwin Schrödinger derivedhis nonrelativistic wave equation forthe quantum mechanical motion ofparticles such as electrons in atoms.The probability density of finding aparticle at a particular position inspace is the square of the absolutevalue of the complex wave function,which is calculated from Schrödinger’sequation. This equation accuratelypredicts the allowed energy levels forthe electron in the hydrogen atom. With the use of modern computers,generalizations of this equation predictthe properties of larger molecules andthe behavior of electrons in complexmaterials.

4. Dirac EquationIn 1928, Paul Dirac derived a relativisticgeneralization of Schrödinger’s waveequation for the quantum mechanicalmotion of a charged particle in anelectromagnetic field. His marvelousequation predicts the magnetic momentof the electron and the existence of antimatter.

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5. Maxwell’s EquationsThe fundamental equations explainingclassical electromagnetism weredeveloped over many years by JamesClerk Maxwell and finished in hisfamous treatise published in 1873.His classical field theory provides anelegant framework for understandingelectricity, magnetism, and the prop-agation of light. Maxwell’s theory wasa major achievement of 19th centuryphysics, and it contained one of theclues that was used years later byEinstein to develop special relativity.Classical field theory was also thespringboard for the development ofquantum field theory.

6. Boltzmann’s Equation for EntropyLudwig Boltzmann, one of thefounders of statistical mechanics inthe late 19th century, proposed thatthe probability for any physical stateof a macroscopic system is propor-tional to the number of ways in whichthe internal states of that system canbe rearranged without changing the

system’s external properties. Whenmore arrangements are possible, thesystem is more disordered.Boltzmann showed that the logarithmof the multiplicity of states of a system,or its disorder, is proportional to itsentropy, and the constant of propor-tionality is Boltzmann’s constant k.The second law of thermodynamicsstates that the total entropy of a systemand its surroundings always increasesas time elapses. Boltzmann’s equationfor entropy is carved on his grave in Vienna.

7. Planck-Einstein EquationThe simple relation between the energyof a light quantum and the frequencyof the associated light wave first emergedin a formula discovered in 1900 byMax Planck. He was examining theintensity of electromagnetic radiationemitted by the atoms in the walls ofan enclosed cavity (a blackbody) atfixed temperature. He found that hecould fit the experimental data byassuming that the energy associatedwith each mode of the electromagneticfield is an integral multiple of someminimum energy that is proportionalto the frequency. The constant ofproportionality, h, is known as

Planck’s constant. It is one of mostimportant fundamental numbers inphysics. In 1905 Albert Einstein recognized that Planck’s equationimplies that light is absorbed oremitted in discrete quanta, explainingthe photoelectric effect and ignitingthe quantum mechanical revolution.

8. Planck’s Blackbody Radiation FormulaIn studying the energy density ofradiation in a cavity, Max Planckcompared two approximate formulas,one for low frequency and one forhigh frequency. In 1900, using aningenious extrapolation, he foundhis equation for the energy density ofblack body radiation, which repro-duced experimental results. Seekingto understand the significance of hisformula, he discovered the relationbetween energy and frequency knownas the Planck-Einstein equation.

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9. Hawking Equation for Black HoleTemperatureUsing insights from thermodynamics,relativistic quantum mechanics, andEinstein’s gravitational theory, StephenHawking predicted in 1974 the sur-prising result that gravitational blackholes, which are predicted by generalrelativity, would radiate energy. Hisformula for the temperature of theradiating black hole depends on thegravitational constant, Planck’s con-stant, the speed of light, andBoltzmann’s constant. While Hawkingradiation remains to be observed, hisformula provides a tempting glimpseof the insights that will be uncoveredin a unified theory combining quan-tum mechanics and gravity.

10. Navier-Stokes Equation for a FluidThe Navier-Stokes equation was derivedin the 19th century from Newtonianmechanics to model viscous fluid flow.Its nonlinear properties make itextremely difficult to solve, even withmodern analytic and computationaltechniques. However, its solutionsdescribe a rich variety of phenomenaincluding turbulence.

11. Lagrangian for Quantum ChromodynamicsRelativistic quantum field theoryhad its first great success with quantumelectrodynamics, which explains theinteraction of charged particles withthe quantized electromagnetic field.Exploration of non-Abelian gaugetheories led next to the spectacularunification of the electromagneticand weak interactions. Then, withinsights developed from the quarkmodel, quantum chromodynamicswas developed to explain the stronginteractions. This theory predictsthat quarks are bound more tightlytogether as their separation increases,which explains why individual quarksare not seen directly in experiments.The standard model, which incorpo-rates strong, weak, and electromagneticinteractions in a single quantum fieldtheory, describes the interaction ofquarks, gluons, and leptons and hasachieved remarkable success in predicting experimental results inelementary particle physics.

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12. BCS Equation for SuperconductivitySuperconductors are materials thatexhibit no electrical resistance at lowtemperatures. In 1957 John Bardeen,Leon N. Cooper, and J. RobertSchrieffer applied quantum fieldtheory with an approximate effectivepotential to explain this uniquebehavior of electrons in a supercon-ductor. The electrons are paired andmove collectively without resistancein the crystal lattice of the super-conducting material. The BCS theoryand its later generalizations predicta wide variety of phenomena thatagree with experimental observationsand have many practical applications.John Bardeen’s contributions tosolid state physics also includeinventing the transistor, made fromsemiconductors, with Walter Brattainand William Shockley in 1947.

13. Josephson EffectIn 1962 Brian Josephson made theremarkable prediction that electriccurrent could flow between two thinpieces of superconducting materialseparated by a thin piece of insulatingmaterial without application of avoltage. Using the BCS theory ofsuperconductivity, he also predictedthat if a voltage difference weremaintained across the junction,there would be an alternating cur-rent with a frequency related to thevoltage and Planck’s constant. Thepresence of magnetic fields influ-ences the Josephson effect, allowingit to be used to measure very weakmagnetic fields approaching themicroscopic limit set by quantummechanics.

14. Fermat’s Last TheoremWhile studying the properties of wholenumbers, or integers, the Frenchmathematician Pierre de Fermatwrote in 1637 that it is impossiblefor the cube of an integer to be writtenas the sum of the cubes of two otherintegers. More generally, he statedthat it is impossible to find such arelation between three integers forany integral power greater than two.He went on to write a tantalizingstatement in the margin of his copyof a Latin translation of Diophantus’sArithemetica: “I have a truly marvelousdemonstration of this proposition,which this margin is too narrow tocontain.” It took over 350 years toprove Fermat’s simple conjecture. Thefeat was achieved by Andrew Wiles in1994 with a “tour de force” proof ofmany pages using newly developedtechniques in number theory.

500 Fifth Street, NWWashington, DC 20001

Robert Lautman (lobby photography)JD Talasek (exterior building photography)