The cover of a recent issue of the avant-garde art magazine Esopus features a beautiful black-and-white image of a Crockroft–Walton generator , a familiar sight, perhaps, to deep nerds, especially those who grew up in the "age of the atom." This particular instance is from Japanese particle physics lab KEK , though the magazine also features old equipment from Fermilab . The generator was the workhorse of particle physics from the 1930s, when it was invented, into the 50s and 60s, creating the high voltages necessary to accelerate particles to high energies. In his essay accompanying the images, photographer Stanley Greenberg quotes Art Institute of Chicago art historian James Elkins : "Particle physics images can easily be taken as art, provided they are interpreted wholly in the light of nonscientific art-world criteria." With that in mind, Greenberg also includes actual bubble chamber film, the whimsically analogue "data storage mechanism" used
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