A Modern Mystery



The Feynman Van – Artist’s Depiction

An interested reader asked about this image of the Feynman van – at first he thought this was a photo, and it took us a while to realize that is wasn’t. (Despite the caption’s description of it as an artist’s depiction!)

A quick web search found this image at a site called Adafruit, as part of an article about the book The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow.

It’s a pretty cool image, but there were a few things (other than the caption) that clued us in to the fact that it’s not a photo. The pavement in the foreground is too clean, the tires and wheels are too clean, the wheels are larger than they are in reality, and the diagrams do not match those seen in other photos of the van.

But where did this image come from? The artist who created the illustration of the Feynman van is Peter Bollinger (as per copyright info in the book:”Original Art Copyright 2010 Peter Bollinger”).