Nanomicroscopic Image Or Modern Art?

SillyConCarbide writes "Every six months, the Materials Research Society holds a science as art competition. The winners from their most recent meeting are particularly breathtaking. Materials researchers may struggle for years with stubborn instruments, fragile crystals or difficult chemical reactions before obtaining a bit of precious data from the exotic substances they study. Now, the scrutiny of samples not only yields potentially important data, but also artistic inspiration. Polymer films, cerium oxide membranes, and tantalum oxide crystals can look beautiful in the right light — especially if that light is an electron beam."

Comments

Its a good thing

[phpmysqldev]

In a world where science is becoming less and less listened to, and most research is conducted by biased corporations for the purpose of supporting a product, anything that gets the public to develop a positive interest in science can't be a bad thing.

Maybe someone will see some of this art and think, wow thats really cool, I wonder why that looks that way. Maybe that will lead people to actually grab a book and learn something.

This is actually pretty neat

[Metasquares]

I was expecting more designed nano-scale guitars, but seeing the article was actually a very pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting to see sunrises, flowers, or forests come out of those images, even if they were colorized.

Re:Everything is Art

[morari]

That just means that modern art is so meaningless and trite that no one knows what could be included as it. I just recently took a trip through the Dayton Art Institute and was seriously perplexed as to just how half of the junk in the "modern art" section managed to be relevant. The answer? It didn't. Not only were many of them simply splattered paint, but over half of the exhibits didn't even have names or titles! The hack that "painted" these can go on forever about how it "really expresses their angst toward the world, especially current politics", but you know what? That's bullshit, and none of it even comes close to being perceived if you were to simply look at the painting because it's nothing but flung-on pigments.

Of course, there was a nice Warhol and a few others to be found in the section that were art and not just meaningless, splattered colors.

sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

Only three images with scale markers, and all the EM pictures colorized. These have to be art, because they definitely are not science. Pretty sad when all the scientists feel they have to colorize their pictures to get anyone to look at them.