Wonders and tremors in the aftershocks of high energy physics

Abstract This article addresses the quality of wonder that surrounds contemporary sites of high-energy physics, and the ethical implications of seeking to engage with these sites as sources of wonderment. It focuses on three pivot points in the emergence of high-energy physics that radiate with a quality of uncanny awe: the first atomic test, conducted under the codename Trinity; the statue of the dancing Nataraja outside the Large Hadron Collider at CERN; and the artistic engagements with particle physics of the Australian Synchrotron’s first artist-in-residence, Chris Henschke. It explores how sites of high-energy physics resonate with potent fears, stemming from the aftershocks of the first nuclear weapons tests and the ultimate unknowability of scientific experiment with powerfully destructive technologies. Drawing on Mary-Jane Rubenstein’s notion of ‘strange wonder’ and Karen Barad’s philosophical work on quantum entanglement, it seeks to explore both the troubling qualities of wonder surrounding popular discourses in high-energy physics and the potential to remake our relationships with its sites and cosmologies, focusing on artistic approaches that suggest new registers for our strange wonder.