Using the Computer as a Camera: Ateam of Hollywood graphics artists helped one astrophysicist present her work on the evolution of the universe

The photos accompanying this article are from a 1985 computer-animated film that resulted from an unusual collaboration between science and art: the film, which depicts the clustering of matter in the early evolution of the universe, was produced by astrophysicist Joan M. Centrella and a Hollywood graphics company led by John Whitney Jr. and Gary Demos. Whitney and Demos won a 1985 Academy award for their work in developing a motion-picture graphics technique called digital scene simulation; their computer-generated graphics have been used in such movies as Tron, Looker, and 2010 and in the music video for Mick Jagger's “Hard Woman.” Computers In Physics asked Centrella for the scientist's perspective on her collaboration.