Terrestrial Physics is a sculpture by American artist Jim Sanborn which includes a full-scale working particle accelerator.
[2][3] Terrestrial Physics involves a polished aluminum sphere that is attached to a cylindrical glass tube coupled with rings of copper.
The work was inspired by what followed from the unexpected report on 26 January 1939 by the physicists Niels Bohr and Enrico Fermi, invited speakers at the Fifth Washington Conference on Theoretical Physics, of the discovery of nuclear fission in Berlin by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and its interpretation by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch.
The experiment at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism (DTM) of Carnegie Institution of Washington on the night of Saturday 28 January 1939, using their Van de Graaff generator driven accelerator was probably the second U.S. confirmation of the European discovery of nuclear fission.
[8] During the period when he was displaying his work at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2003, Sanborn discovered an accelerator and was given permission to copy it.