After ten years of research and development, British artist and engineer Steven Pippin has achieved an exciting feat: to perfectly balance a simple 2B pencil on his nose. In his installation titled Ω = 1, two optical sensors detect the slightest movements of the pencil and transmit this information to motors that subtly shift the base every 20 milliseconds to compensate for the slightest imbalance. The result is impressive: the pencil seems to defy the laws of physics by remaining perfectly still on its nose.

The work is inspired by a metaphor used in astrophysics to depict a universe in critical balance, which lies between gravitational collapse and infinite expansion. This theoretical state is associated with a value close to Ω = 1, hence the name of the facility.