Kinetica Artfair

Robert Moore, UK

Third Law 2010.

Robert Moore has always had an interest in creating linear drawings and rolling ball sculptures, paying homage to Isaac Newton’s third law. Each of his sculptures starts with a simple set of ideas, but the constant testing and adjustments hugely influence the route that each track takes. In the later stages of construction, it becomes more a competition in finding left over space for tracks to continue. 

Newton’s third law may be summarized as, ‘For every action, there is an equal opposite reaction.’ For Moore, an example of kinetic energy is, the 'work' that a moving object can do on anything it hits. An object with the capacity for 'work' to be carried out is potential energy. In Moore’s, Third Law, it is mostly gravitational potential energy that moves the balls, by the use of several groupings of three balls. Perfectly round, hard spheres are ideal to demonstrate this as the collisions are considered to be, 'elastic collisions' of low friction. This means there is no (or scientifically very little) loss of kinetic energy after colliding, and the receiving ball transmits energy through the other balls. The use of yellow reflective disks is to remind us that Newton also developed the first colour wheel, following his early experiments in refracting light.