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.