While in England studying archaeology, Sanborn endeavored to create a structure out of stone to gain a better insight on Romanesque sculptures. From this he has created many works of art that deal with invisible forces. These include the coriolis effect and its use of Newton's laws of motion that govern the motion of an object in an inertial frame of reference. He has also worked on pieces that implemented the Earth's magnetic field using lodestones. Other sculptures have featured the science of cryptography. One of Sanborn's most famous cryptographic works, entitled "Kryptos", is featured in Dan Brown's 2009 novel "The Lost Symbol". The novel is one of books which includes Robert Langdon, the symbologist.