The Visual Image of Chemistry
August 12, 2007 2:31 PM   Subscribe

 
Micturation of given link into a vessel specially prepared for scrutinization of contents would yield observation of crystallized awesome.
posted by carsonb at 2:40 PM on August 12, 2007




Very cool. My physics teachers always told me Isaac Newton was the first great physicist. You could also describe him as the last great magician. When I was in school the Chemistry majors always had the best drugs.
posted by bukvich at 4:21 PM on August 12, 2007 [1 favorite]


That paper was hard on the eyes, but interesting. I've certainly been posed by photographers using this cliche. "Stand at the bench holding your specimen at eye level" is a great way to show off the neat crystals that grow in one's waste bottles (or one's pretty solutions), but a lousy way to actually accomplish anything other than destruction.
posted by janell at 4:56 PM on August 12, 2007


This gentleman was typically photo'd without a labcoat, and with a molecule. Two Nobels. Enuf said.
posted by Twang at 6:15 PM on August 12, 2007


The Nobel peace price don't count.
posted by bukvich at 6:42 PM on August 12, 2007 [1 favorite]


Nice link, I'll definitely read it in detail at the lab tomorrow.

Heh, janell. In undergrad, I've had photogs asking us where the "coloured beakers" were (they were thinking erlenmyer flasks) and asking us to put on safety goggles while looking at a completely innocuous silver-stained sequencing gel.

Nowadays, I'm asked to turn on the flourescent lamps on the microscopes (ooh, colours), to put on safety goggles and look into the microscope (like, wtf? - besides, I spend more time analyzing the data on a computer monitor than staring into the eyepieces of a fluorescent microscope), and to put on lab coats and gloves and safety goggles (what's with the safety goggles?!) when standing over something not even on the camera and looking intrigued.

In many fields of the physical sciences, a lot of work is at computers (well, reading published literature - I wonder how many non-scientists understand just how much "keep-learning-more" scientists have to do each and every day to keep up with the field?) where data is analyzed or experiments and the tools to do them are designed compared to how (relatively) less time is spent actually carrying out experiments (aside from waiting for stuff to react or develop or incubate or...).

Photogs are doing photographs for a reason: physical evidence that some science-type-stuff was in the news, or promoting a particular group of scientists so the public knows about them and may even be convinced to give those scientists money.

Hey - if someone will give me money to do science, I'll pose in nothing (and I mean nothing) but a labcoat and goggles. I'll even do cartwheels and handstands if they wanted me to.

The question is - how effective are the cliche'd poses that photogs want to set us up in with regards to achieving an end?
posted by porpoise at 10:48 PM on August 12, 2007


This gentleman was typically photo'd without a labcoat, and with a molecule. Two Nobels. Enuf said.

The exception proves the rule.
posted by telstar at 1:28 PM on August 13, 2007


This gentleman was typically photo'd without a labcoat, and with a molecule. Two Nobels. Enuf said.

The exception proves the rule.
posted by telstar at 1:28 PM on August 13, 2007


I at least worked in a lab, mostly, porpoise. I can see your point about getting dragged into all that gear when you normally work at a computer or a microscope. But nothing irks me more than to see photos of people in labs (usually suits, on tours) not wearing their PPE. (uh, safety glasses).
posted by janell at 3:24 PM on August 13, 2007


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