Dr. Robert Duncan-Enzmann

Order Theory is a systematic description of the universe extending from the smallest known entities – the fundamental particles which comprise the atoms – through a hierarchy of organized matter, to the largest currently perceived entity represented by the optical limit of the universe. The hierarchy is divided into orders, literally a cascade of ‘periodic tables,’ each constructed of smaller components even as atoms are comprised of electrons, protons, neutrons, etc. Molecules are comprised of atoms and so on in ever physically larger structural orders.

The sizes, shapes, and durations of things are a result of the fundamental structure of the universe forever veiled from the knowledge of Man, who may describe but never explain. We attempt to describe the essence of an electron with formulae, words, and pictures; we do not explain an electron. We describe it. We describe its essence. We are the artists. The sizes, shapes, and durations of entities of a particular order are imposed as a function of the entities’ composition and energies acting thereon: external, internal, and stored.

An order and the entities of which it’s comprised may be thought of as a step in a turbulent, river-like cascade. The material substance of the universe is organized into structures (orders) that endure for relatively long periods and may be compared with the horizontal steps of a cascading stream. The relatively rapid reorganization of matter to form entities of higher orders may be compared with the vertical drops of a cascading stream where the water moves from one step to another. The comparison of orders with a stream is mathematically as well as artistically valid, for the substance of the universe is caught, even as water in a stream channel, in a cascade of energy, flows from an unknown thermodynamic source to an unknown thermodynamic sink.

An example of solid matter flowing along a source-sink cascade is found all about us in the solid earth: the ⁺1^st order stone shell of the Earth is heaved into ⁺2^nd order continental platforms and oceanic basins by internal forces within the Earth. The continents are worn into ⁺3^rd order belts of plains, hills, and mountains by rains driven by the Sun, even as the continents are lifted by forces within the Earth. Single ⁺4^th order mountains are broken into ⁺5^th order masses and boulders by frost, rains, and impacts, and these into ⁺6^th order pebbles, ⁺7^th order silt and so to the sea to be reconstituted again into the rocky rim of the mother continent. We, the artists, wonder if the universe itself is cyclic as a continent, or as a river rushing to the sea, to be endlessly replenished by rains drawn by the Sun from the sea and blown back over the land by the winds. We humbly offer our pictures, words, and equations, in which we have tried to capture the essence of a beautiful cascade through time. The viewer can see that neither our words nor equations are original. We do not claim this; we wish to capture a point of view of the beautiful universe in which we live, our interpretation of the inanimate stage on which we live and play our parts.