Mixed Media on Canvas
38" x 23"
Galileo's insistence that only mathematics, because of its inherent exactness, must be used to describe test results finally brought real objectivity to early scientific exploration. This "language of science", however precise in its descriptive power, when formed into an equation, can also provide a “nugget” of ‘whys’ that grabs the ‘mind’s eye’.
Thus, Galileo's Equation was a first attempt to visually "concretize" the mathematical abstraction of the equation so as to see what images and thoughts may result. I found questions, to which the answers brought out more questions, and ...? The clock, of course, stands for time. Clocks measure time and have produced the phrase ‘the Hands of Time’. So you have the clock numbers being positioned by the Hands of Time. But, what is time? Physics 101 tells us that time is movement through a space continuum. That statement implies distance, so there is the tape measure flowing into the clock face. Or is it flowing out? The distance 'd', in effect movement, is divided by the number 16. But, what actually is a number? Arithmetic 101 says numbers represent counted things, so there are 16 balls ordered in a square, why a square and why is one ball falling downward leaving its shadow behind? And why are those 'Putti' involved throughout the whole process? Consider, too, why the disk behind the clock cabinet is divided into seven sections. And why is the Chinese Yin/Yang symbol at the end or the beginning of the flowing tape?
As presented in this equation, probably the simplest form in modern notation, describes the result from one of Galileo's studies on terrestrial motion and thus applies only to this world. Hence, the frame is integral with the painting thereby symbolizing the limits of the equation's application to this planet within this solar system. And finally, the colors and texture throughout allude to the Renaissance, since the Galileo’s studies were made in 16th century Italy.
