Unwitting artists

Do chemists and artists have more in common than we think? After all, art and chemistry both seek to manipulate matter. Chemists have always used their imaginations to tie the microscopic world to the macroscopic one and master the combining and breaking apart of the invisible entities we now call atoms.

Beautiful scientific concepts are often accompanied with diagrams and models to illustrate the concepts that words cannot do justice to. ‘Getting chemistry across, by the use of diagrams and structural models, does involve you trying to make something that is pleasing to the eye,’ says David Knight, emeritus professor of the history and philosophy of science at Durham University, UK.

Arguably beautiful and artistic in their own right, the aesthetically pleasing nature of diagrams, illustrations and models is often an afterthought to the theories they explain. We might be taught that science should not express itself in the individual and emotional way that art does, and it must remain objective. But is this a realistic picture of how science has evolved?

This article provides a link to the article by Chemistry World