Milk Drop Coronet

Milk Drop Coronet is a high-speed photograph of a drop of milk falling onto the surface of a red pan, creating a splash resembling a coronet, taken by American scientist Harold "Doc" Edgerton on January 10, 1957. The picture was created using a camera connected to a beam of light, which triggered when the drop of milk obstructed the light.

Edgerton was an electrical engineer, and had personally developed a stroboscope which he used to take high-speed photographs of, among others, drops of liquid. He began capturing images of milk drops as early as 1932, and produced a similar picture to Milk Drop Coronet titled Milk Drop Coronet Splash in 1936.

Milk Drop Coronet has been called an "uncannily beautiful image" by New York Times art critic Ken Johnson, appeared in Time magazine's list of Most Influential Images of All Time, and exhibited in various art museums.

Background Harold Eugene Edgerton was an American photographer and scientist who earned a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1931, where he served as a professor of electrical engineering. In 1932, Edgerton designed a stroboscope that could emit 60 10‐microsecond flashes of light per second and recharge in less than a microsecond, which could thus be used to take high-speed photographs. Edgerton, who initially intended to use the stroboscope to study electrical motors, extended his efforts to photos of bullets being shot, flying insects, and drops of liquid. Edgerton had begun making photographs of drops of milk splashing as early as 1932, and four years later, he created a black-and-white photograph, titled Milk Drop Coronet Splash, of a splash of milk forming a coronal shape, similar to Milk Drop Coronet. In the second edition of his 1939 book Flash! Seeing the Unseen by Ultra High-Speed Photography, Edgerton wrote that two principles should be kept in mind when viewing his photographs of splashes and drops:

Creation

The photograph was created on January 10, 1957. Milk was selected for its high contrast and its opacity. Edgerton connected his camera to xenon flashtubes, then positioned it in front of a dripper that steadily released droplets onto a red pan. The photo was taken when the first drop fell through and thereby briefly blocked a beam of light connected to a detector. This first drop is seen in the photograph as forming the splash, under a second drop falling.

Physical copies According to Gus Kayafas, the original photographic negative was destroyed. Several prints of the photograph have been made, which were distributed to and exhibited in art museums. +Date printedMediumDimensions (image)Location1957Dye transferArt Institute of Chicago1957Dye transferMIT Museum1957Dye transferDenver Art Museum1957C-typeAmon Carter Museum of American Art1957Dye transferSan Francisco Museum of Modern Art1957Dye transferPhiladelphia Museum of Art1957Dye transferMuseum of Fine Arts (St. Petersburg, Florida)1957Dye transferNew Mexico Museum of Art1957Dye transferHarvard Art MuseumsC-typeVictoria and Albert MuseumDye transferThe Phillips Collection1963Dye transferMuseum of Modern Art1977Dye transferNational Gallery of Canada1985Dye transferPrinceton University Art Museum19841990Dye transferWhitney Museum

Reception and legacy Art critic Ken Johnson, writing for The New York Times in 2001, called the photograph an "uncannily beautiful image" and compared Edgerton's work to Eadweard Muybridge's photography. In 2016, the photograph was included in Time magazine's 100 Photographs: The Most Influential Images of All Time. The corresponding article read that the picture "proved that photography could advance human understanding of the physical world."

Mathematicians Martin Golubitsky and Ian Stewart used the photograph to illustrate the phenomenon of symmetry-breaking in their 1992 book Fearful symmetry: is God a geometer?

Milk Drop Coronet

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