The Beauty of Science

 

Science and the Arts are rich with moments of creative connection

Here are some of our favourites
What beautiful science inspires you? Let us know — we'd love to add your ideas to the Gallery

 

 

https://view.genial.ly/602fa59759e7aa0d9c169322

Weaving a rainbow

Ever dreamed of attending a John-Keats Poetry Slam? The Institute for Digital Archaeology have made that dream a reality.
200 years after his death, scientists have created a virtual, 3D Keats reciting "Bright Star".
John Keats wondered if turning from art to science might destroy the poetry in nature's beauty and "unweave a rainbow".
Now modern technology has woven together a creative rainbow of science and art — we hope Keats would have approved.

 

 

https://youtube.com/embed/VSG9q_YKZLI

"Science only adds to the excitement and mystery ... of a flower"

In 1981 Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman talked about an artist friend who felt science made a beautiful flower "dull".
Feynman's response: "He's kind of nutty".
Discover how science unfurls the many dimensions of beauty.

 

More to explore: Botanical Blue — the algae of Anna Atkins

 

 

https://youtube.com/embed/NobVIyP1kqc

Back from the Dead

A pioneer in x-ray crystallography, Dorothy Hodgkin developed a 3D contour map of the structure of penicillin on sheets of perspex.
Years before computer-generated virtual imaging, she used three-dimensional techniques to reveal an invisible structure.
She was admired by her peers and students: 20 years after winning the Nobel Prize in 1964, a portrait of Dorothy Hodgkin was installed in 10 Downing Street by her former Oxford student, Margaret Thatcher.
Hodgkin's model is simply, brilliantly beautiful.

 

More to explore: Back from the Dead Exhibition