Mathematical Photography
The art of Justin Mullins
Mathematical photographs explore the cultural, intellectual and emotional role of mathematics in human life. My current work is inspired by major works of art from the past. I use them as a kind of prism through which to view mathematical reality from the perspective of the real world; and vice versa.
My new show is highlights this work. It includes mathematical photographs inspired by Monet, Bellini, Dali, Rustici, Warhol and many others. Together they create a different perspective on the connection between the mathematical and physical realities, like a hall of mathematical mirrors, and raise questions about the cultural role mathematics plays in our lives.
Mathematical Mirrors–great art reimagined in a mathematical landscape is at Lauderdale House in Highgate from Thursday 27 November 2025 until Sunday 21 December 2025.
Official portrait of the modern Lobster Telephone
Inspired by Lobster Telephone by Salvador Dali 1936, Tate Modern (inset)
In this statement, L is the set of modern Lobster Telephones while P is the property of being in this official portrait. In the pure and arcane language of logic, it says that this picture is the official portrait of modern Lobster Telephones. And by the rules of logic, the statement is true. Perfectly, incontrovertibly, puzzlingly true.
Here’s how it works. The original Lobster Telephone was created by Salvador Dali as an example of the Surrealist idea of juxtaposing ordinary objects to create the extraordinary. He did this in the 1930s, so there are no modern examples. In other words, the set of modern Lobster Telephones is empty. That has important implications for the statement that every element in this set has the property of being in this official portrait. Since it is impossible to produce a member of the set for which this is false, the statement must be formally true.
Logicians call this a vacuous truth, a statement so devoid of content that it cannot be proven false. Its seemingly paradoxical nature highlights the profound differences between intuitive thinking in humans and predicate logic in mathematics.
October 2025
Digital print fine art paper
On view at Lauderdale House from 27 November to 21 December 2025
LAMENTATION OVER THE DEATH OF TRUTH
Inspired by Giovani Bellini’s Lamentation over the dead Christ (c1475) Vatican Museum (inset)
One of the most shocking events in the history of mathematics was the publication in 1931 of a paper entitled “On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems” by a young mathematician called Kurt Gӧdel.
Godel showed that systems of logic like arithmetic share a profound flaw that undermines the very foundations of mathematical knowledge. Until then, mathematicians had expected these kinds of logical systems to be entirely consistent, meaning that it was impossible for them to contain contradictory statements. And that they would also be self-contained, or complete, meaning that the truth of any statement made using the language of arithmetic, geometry or other logical system, could be determined using this same language.
Godel’s paper showed this was not the case using an ingenious method of mathematical self-referencing akin to the famous phrase “This statement is false”.
Godel captured this paradoxical behaviour in the language of logic and showed that it undermined the expectation that logical systems must be consistent and complete. The shocking implication was that some true statements cannot be proven true.
The paper signalled an unexpected and devastating end to mathematicians’ vision of truth.
This is equation is from Godel’s Proof by Ernest Nagel and James R Newman, an essay that appeared in The World of Mathematics in 1956 and was later developed into a short and highly recommended book, where the same equation appears in a slightly modified form.
October 2025
Digital print on fine art paper
On view at Lauderdale House from 27 November to 21 December 2025
The Colour Purple
Imagine you had to explain the concept of purple to a being from another planet, one who experiences life using an entirely different set of senses and in wildly different ways. How could you do it?
One way would be to use hydrogen, which makes up 75 per cent of all the elements in the universe. Hydrogen atoms consist of a central proton, p+ and a single electron, e–, that can occupy one of many different orbits. These orbits are numbered; n=1 is the first orbit, n=2 the second orbit and so on. The electron can move from one orbit to another.
When the electron falls from a higher to a lower orbit, it emits a package of energy called a photon. The amount of energy–the colour of the photon–depends on the size of the jump. Jumps of many different sizes are possible but in hydrogen, only four produce visible light. These jumps correspond to specific shades of the colours red, cyan, blue and purple.
When astronomers analyse light from the universe, they see each of these colours as single spectral lines. H-delta is the name of the fourth line – our view of the electron falling from hydrogen’s sixth orbit to its second orbit. The Rydberg formula calculates the wavelength, λ, of the light produced in this way for any two orbits or values of n. RH is a number called the Rydberg constant. For the H-delta line, n1 is 2 and n2 is 6 so the wavelength is 410.1734 nanometres. To our eyes, pure purple.
Because hydrogen is so common, these four colours fill the cosmos. The universe is bathed in purple. That’s why nebulas have spectacular pinky-purplish colouring. Cosmologists believe the universe must look more or less the same, wherever you happen to be in it. So our alien friend ought to be as familiar with the H-delta line as we are, even though they might experience it in an entirely different way.
For Jacky, June 2021
Digital print on Hahnemuhle smooth fine art paper, 42 x 30 cm
Incantation of truth No 1
If I write down a statement, how do you know whether it is true or false?
May 2021
Digital print on Hahnemuhle smooth fine art paper
30 x 42 cm
Young boy with paper
There are limitless proofs of the Pythagorean theorem but this is the one most often taught at school. It has probably inspired, bemused and terrorised millions.
March 2019
Digital print on Photorag stock paper
60 x 42 cm
An evening in Hannover
I once spent an evening in Hannover with a mathematically-minded friend laughing uproariously at this joke while discussing the mathematics behind it.
March 2019
Digital print on Photorag stock paper
60 x 42 cm
The burden of life
A formula for compound interest, a phenomenon that condemns millions to lifetimes of debt and misery.
March 2019
Digital print on Photorag stock paper
60 x 42 cm
Middle-aged man with paper
Pythagoras’ theorem is one of the great relations in mathematics. There are an infinite number of proofs to choose from, some 367 of them published in The Pythagorean Proposition by Elisha Loomis. This one–a proof using vector geometry– appears in slightly different form at the end of Loomis’ book.
March 2019
Digital print on Photorag stock paper
60 x 42 cm
THE SHOCK OF SUDDEN DEATH
Entanglement can sometimes end in an unexpected way called sudden death. These matrices show the difference between entangled states that fade away and those that end in sudden death.
March 2019
Digital print on Photorag stock paper
60 x 42 cm
BACK TO THE FUTURE
There are no laws of physics that prevent time travel. In the quantum world, the probabilistic nature of these laws means that particles can interact with their former selves. Physicists have created quantum time travel machines that perform this experiment and this diagram shows the quantum time machine’s circuit diagram.
March 2019
Digital print on Photorag stock paper
30 x 42 cm
About the art of Justin Mullins
For many people, their main experience of mathematics is sheer blind terror. Show them an equation and cold beads of sweat appear on their foreheads as they succumb to the icy grip of fear. For others, the experience is quite different. Some are bemused or irritated; others feel a surge of curiosity and a powerful sense of achievement when the hieroglyphics have been conquered.
Then there is the sense of beauty, elegance and power that mathematics conveys. Many mathematicians have remarked on this exquisiteness as well as on its inevitable counterpoint: a tortured ugliness that is sometimes almost suffocating.
All this points to an extraordinary but rarely remarked upon role for mathematics: as a vehicle for social, emotional and cultural exchange. That’s where my interest lies.
I am not interested in mathematics as it is often portrayed: as a silver thread of logic that leads from hypothesis to proof. This is a kind of ivory castle of mathematics, a perfect but ultimately unreachable world.
For me, mathematics is a human activity—at times it is awe inspiring and mind blowing but it is also infuriating, puzzling, unsatisfactory and often wrong (at least when I think about it). Reuben Hersh describes it refreshingly in his book What is mathematics, really? “Mathematics must be understood as a human activity, a social phenomenon, part of human culture, historically evolved, and intelligible only in a social context.”
My work attempts to capture this element of mathematics. I often use it to remember people, things and important moments. I try to use it to capture vignettes of ordinary moments, to create portraits of people I know or snapshots of mathematical landscapes that have inspired or terrified me. I too know the icy grip of fear! For me, it is an emotional experience, indeed it is a roller coaster ride.
Let me say upfront that I am not a mathematician. I lay no claim to the equations I have selected in my work. Those are the discoveries of the philosophers and scientists who spend their lives exploring the mathematical world and revealing its great wonders. For me they are like the great explorers returning from distant shores with tales of fantastic lands and magical creatures.
If mathematicians are explorers, then my role is that of a photographer who retraces their steps. During my journey, I photograph what I find. By that I mean I frame it, record it and later present it.
There is nothing particularly special about this process. In the same way that an ordinary photograph is a snapshot of an area of outstanding natural beauty, a mathematical photograph is a snapshot of mathematical beauty.
Justin Mullins is an artist and writer. He has been producing and exhibiting his artwork in the UK and US since 1998. His art has been covered by New Scientist, The Guardian and various radio and TV shows.
Email: justin@justinmullins.com