Benjamin writes, “The tattoo on my ankle is of a one-bit binary full adder. It one of the most basic building blocks of all computer chips. The flow of binary state would be from left to right as oriented in the picture.”
Archive for the ‘Science Tattoo Emporium’ Category
A Million Ankles And You’ve Got A Laptop [Science Tattoo]
The Guardian of the Genome [Science Tattoo]
Jacylnn, a medical student, writes: “If you assign a certain color to each base, this double helix tattoo represents the first 45 nucleic acids from the first exon of p53. p53 is a transcription factor known as the “guardian of the genome.” It sends damaged cells into apoptosis and thus helps prevent cancer. I studied p53 and other targets of the SV40 tumor virus while working on a molecular biology degree at The University of Pittsburgh. I’m now a medical student at Nova Southeastern University. My husband, who is much more right-brained than I am, designed the tattoo for me.”
[Update: Thanks to eagle-eyed readers who realized that the original photo was backwards. Fortunately, the error was photographic and not a matter for laser tattoo removal.]
The Jokes Physicists Tell About Chemists [Science Tattoo]
Stevens Johnson, a physics professor, writes:
After years of needling from my musician wife (who has a pair of music tattoos on her shoulders), I finally took up the challenge and wasted a large amount of time designing my own science tattoos. I greatly enjoyed the time and effort to get them just right, to reflect who I am and what I do (Prof. of Physics and Engineering).
The right shoulder tattoo [CZ: above] is a 3D perspective abstract view of a gaussian photon, a “particle of light,” the red vertical undulations represent the electric field, the black horizontal undulations the magnetic field. It is propagating to the right, seen here as a snapshot in time. The photon is the single most common manner in which information is transmitted from one place in the universe to another. The tattoo artist suggested adding the faint shadows to give it depth, but the real reason I agreed was the ironic (oxymoronic?) humor of a particle of light casting a shadow.
The left shoulder tattoo [CZ: below] is a 3D perspective of the Periodic Table with the Planck Snake weaving around it (note the h-bar, Plank’s constant, in the eye). The snake represents the wave nature of matter, and Physics in general. (The infinity symbol the snake forms is a bonus.) The combination of the Periodic Table of Chemistry with the Planck Snake of Physics is also an inside joke at the expense of chemists: It took the Quantum Mechanics of Physics to explain to Chemistry its own Table of Elements.
I had no idea there were others who wear their science on their bodies until I did a web search, on a lark. Imagine my surprise. I think I’m hooked; I may not be done designing science tattoos.
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Sigmas From Shoulder to Shoulder [Science Tattoos]
Joe writes, “My tattoo is 3 lines of equations, the top is the Born Oppenheimer Approximation, the second line is the equation in the form of a 3-Dimensional Schroedinger Equation, and the solution in the form of a Schroedinger Equation. As a biochemist and molecular biophysicist I studied a lot of this stuff and I must say, Schroedinger was my favorite and well, I had to do it. The ink was done at Red Sky Studios in Tucson, AZ by artist Lisa.”
Tropical Newton [Science Tattoos]
Donovan, a biologist from Brazil writes, “My tattoo talks about the real scientific spirit. It’s a phrase in Portuguese of Isaac Newton: ‘If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.’”
Math As Useful Beauty [Science Tattoos]
Nicole, a physics graduate student and blogger, writes:
My tattoo is the Taylor expansion of sine. I consider it the most beautiful thing I have ever learned (it has held that title for about 7 years) and I got the tattoo after my freshman year at MIT. It has additional meaning to me since sin(x)~x is one of the most useful things in physics.
For a lesson in Taylor series, go here.
I am Shiva, The Physics Teacher Of Worlds [Science Tattoos]
Alison, a high-school physics teacher, writes:
Like many scientists, the wonder of the natural laws of the Universe is where I draw my spiritual inspiration. I also study the religions of the world, and have been fascinated by the reoccurring theme of Creation, Preservation, and Destruction. The Mandelbrot Set (top) represents Creation, with the emergent properties of a simple equation that produces such a rich, complex, and unpredictable fractal pattern that goes on into Infinity. The equation for hydrostatic equilibrium (bottom left) represents Preservation, describing the precarious balance between crushing gravity and expanding pressure inside of stars (including our own) to keep them in a stable, sustainable size for billions of years. The equation describing entropy (bottom right) symbolizes Destruction, simply stating that this fundamental break down of systems and accumulation of disorder either increases or stays the same over time, but never decreases. All three circle around the Delta, the symbol for Change.
Eye of Newt, Oil of Meteorite [Science Tattoo Emporium]
From Rob Wesel, meteorite-lover and -purveyor.
For some time I have wanted to get a tattoo to depict my appreciation for meteorites.
On September 28, 1969 meteorites fell in Murchison, Australia.On September 28, 2004 our daughter Christina (a.k.a. Pinky) was born.
As if wasn’t already a top-fiver for it’s amino acids, Murchison quickly moved up the ranks of my favorite meteorites and I had decided it would somehow be involved in the meteorite tattoo.
With a little help from friends Steve Arnold (IMB) and Jason Phillips I obtained a small capsule of Murchison crumbs to pulverize and one day add to the ink.
I ultimately decided on a carbon buckeyball, found in Murchison, unrolled and laid out flat. With Murchison fully represented in design and medium, I had the tattoo artist make one carbon atom bright pink in honor of Pinky. Although it’s only the size of the head of a pin, it means the world to her…and me.
More of Rob’s description here.
A Promise Is A Promise…
I don’t usually pass on press releases, but this one, I think you’ll agree, is unique…
Traffic to DISCOVERmagazine.com set a new record in March 2009, drawing 1.7 million unique visitors, more than three times the traffic for March 2008.
CEO and Publisher Henry Donahue and popular Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait—whose blog garnered 2 million page views in March—made a promise last year (when traffic was one-third what it is now) that they would both get science tattoos if the site’s traffic reached its current level. With those traffic goals now realized, Donahue and Plait are making good on their promise, and inviting suggestions for their tattoo designs via the comments section of the Bad Astronomy blog.
Donahue explains, “Last summer at Comic Con, Phil Plait and I were marveling at the success of the online science tattoo gallery that Carl Zimmer brought with his blog to DISCOVERmagazine.com. Half kidding, we said we would get tattoos ourselves if we could triple the traffic to the site. Now that that has actually happened, we’re committed to doing it. I think I’m getting a fish and Phil is getting a galaxy, but we’re also excited to see what the readers come up with.”
I’ll be adding their tattoos when they’re ready to share. As one would expect, Phil is taking suggestions from his readers over at Bad Astronomy.
For my part, I remain an amused observer, my skin marked only by crows feet and freckles.
Just Follow The Light…[Science Tattoo Emporium]
John writes, “I got it because I’m studying Marine sciences with a Bio minor at Coastal Carolina University, In my junior year and things are starting to get tough. I tend to not finish things I start. This is my motivation to persist and to succeed.”
For more on the humpback anglerfish (Melanocetus johnsonii), see here.
You Don’t Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Ink Flows
A meteorologist who asked to remain anonymous writes:
This tattoo is of a cumulonimbus (thunderstorm) cloud with bolts of lightning. My childhood fascination with weather led to a career in it. Storms are embedded in my psyche & soul, and during a stormy time in my life I decided to embed a storm in my skin. I sketched a cumulonimbus cloud for the tattoo artist, and he and the other people in the parlor said something along the lines of, ‘Dude, we can make that tubular!’ … and this is how it turned out. It retained meteorological accuracy via the bit of an ‘anvil’ in the upper right and is comparable in structure to the storm in this photo, but without any color. That’s fitting since it represents personal storms as well as atmospheric ones, but perhaps someday I’ll get another tattoo that’s not so dark, to represent brighter days.
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
(With apologies to Mr. Zimmerman )
Astrophilia [Tattoo]
An anonymous reader writes, “The Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune in 1989 was one of the big events that really got me into science and astronomy. My dad and I went to our local planetarium, which was live-streaming the images from NASA as they came in. Even though I don’t really work in astronomy now, I wanted a tattoo to commemorate my continued love of astronomy and one of my dearest childhood memories. My tattoo is the Voyager 2 spacecraft with Neptune and Triton.”
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
