Picturing Science And Engineering

A guide to making scientific photographs for presentations, journal submissions, and covers, featuring step-by-step instructions and case studies, by an award-winning science photographer; illustrated in color throughout. One of the most powerful ways for scientists to document and communicate their work is through photography. Unfortunately, most scientists have little or no training in that craft. In this book, celebrated science photographer Felice Frankel offers a guide for creating science images that are both accurate and visually stunning. Picturing Science and Engineering provides detailed instructions for making science photographs using the DSLR camera, the flatbed scanner, and the phone camera. The book includes a series of step-by-step case studies, describing how final images were designed for cover submissions and other kinds of visualizations. Lavishly illustrated in color throughout, the book encourages the reader to learn by doing, following Frankel as she recreates the stages of discovery that lead to a good science visual. Frankel shows readers how to present their work with graphics--how to tell a visual story--and considers issues of image adjustment and enhancement. She describes how developing the right visual to express a concept not only helps make science accessible to nonspecialists, but also informs the science itself, helping scientists clarify their thinking. Within the book are specific URLs where readers can view Frankel's online tutorials--visual "punctuations" of this printed edition. Additional materials, including tutorials and videos, can be found online at the book's website. Published with the help of funding from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan fund

A guide to making scientific photographs for presentations, journal submissions, and covers, featuring step-by-step instructions and case studies, by an award-winning science photographer; illustrated in color throughout. One of the most powerful ways for scientists to document and communicate their work is through photography. Unfortunately, most scientists have little or no training in that craft. In this book, celebrated science photographer Felice Frankel offers a guide for creating science images that are both accurate and visually stunning. Picturing Science and Engineering provides detailed instructions for making science photographs using the DSLR camera, the flatbed scanner, and the phone camera. The book includes a series of step-by-step case studies, describing how final images were designed for cover submissions and other kinds of visualizations. Lavishly illustrated in color throughout, the book encourages the reader to learn by doing, following Frankel as she recreates the stages of discovery that lead to a good science visual. Frankel shows readers how to present their work with graphics--how to tell a visual story--and considers issues of image adjustment and enhancement. She describes how developing the right visual to express a concept not only helps make science accessible to nonspecialists, but also informs the science itself, helping scientists clarify their thinking. The book includes references to Frankel's online tutorials at the book's website--visual "punctuations" of this printed edition--along with how-to videos and other additional materials. Published with the generous support of Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

How technical drawings shaped early engineering practice. Technical drawings by the architects and engineers of the Renaissance made use of a range of new methods of graphic representation. These drawings—among them Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawings of mechanical devices—have long been studied for their aesthetic qualities and technological ingenuity, but their significance for the architects and engineers themselves is seldom considered. The essays in Picturing Machines 1400–1700 take this alternate perspective and look at how drawing shaped the practice of early modern engineering. They do so through detailed investigations of specific images, looking at over 100 that range from sketches to perspective views to thoroughly constructed projections. In early modern engineering practice, drawings were not merely visualizations of ideas but acted as models that shaped ideas. Picturing Machines establishes basic categories for the origins, purposes, functions, and contexts of early modern engineering illustrations, then treats a series of topics that not only focus on the way drawings became an indispensable means of engineering but also reflect the main stages in their historical development. The authors examine the social interaction conveyed by early machine images and their function as communication between practitioners; the knowledge either conveyed or presupposed by technical drawings, as seen in those of Giorgio Martini and Leonardo; drawings that required familiarity with geometry or geometric optics, including the development of architectural plans; and technical illustrations that bridged the gap between practical and theoretical mechanics.

Helps scientists and engineers to communicate research results by showing how to create effective graphics for use in journal submissions, grant proposals, conference posters, presentations and more.

A complete guide to the creation of compelling science photographs.

A small revolution is remaking the world. The only problem is, we can’t see it. This book uses dazzling images and evocative descriptions to reveal the virtually invisible realities and possibilities of nanoscience. An introduction to the science and technology of small things, No Small Matter explains science on the nanoscale. Authors Felice C. Frankel and George M. Whitesides offer an overview of recent scientific advances that have given us our ever-shrinking microtechnology—for instance, an information processor connected by wires only 1,000 atoms wide. They describe the new methods used to study nanostructures, suggest ways of understanding their often bizarre behavior, and outline their uses in technology. This book explains the various means of making nanostructures and speculates about their importance for critical developments in information processing, computation, biomedicine, and other areas. No Small Matter considers both the benefits and the risks of nano/microtechnology—from the potential of quantum computers and single-molecule genomic sequencers to the concerns about self-replicating nanosystems. By making the practical and probable realities of nanoscience as comprehensible and clear as possible, the book provides a unique vision of work at the very boundaries of modern science.

By showing us the human brain at work, PET (positron emission tomography) scans are subtly--and sometimes not so subtly--transforming how we think about our minds. Picturing Personhood follows this remarkable and expensive technology from the laboratory into the world and back. It examines how PET scans are created and how they are being called on to answer myriad questions with far-reaching implications: Is depression an observable brain disease? Are criminals insane? Do men and women think differently? Is rationality a function of the brain? Based on interviews, media analysis, and participant observation at research labs and conferences, Joseph Dumit analyzes how assumptions designed into and read out of the experimental process reinforce specific notions about human nature. Such assumptions can enter the process at any turn, from selecting subjects and mathematical models to deciding which images to publish and how to color them. Once they leave the laboratory, PET scans shape social debates, influence courtroom outcomes, and have positive and negative consequences for people suffering mental illness. Dumit follows this complex story, demonstrating how brain scans, as scientific objects, contribute to our increasing social dependence on scientific authority. The first book to examine the cultural ramifications of brain-imaging technology, Picturing Personhood is an unprecedented study that will influence both cultural studies and the growing field of science and technology studies.

Championing Science shows scientists how to persuasively communicate complex scientific ideas to decision makers in government, industry, and education. This comprehensive guide provides real-world strategies to help scientists develop the essential communication, influence, and relationship-building skills needed to motivate nonexperts to understand and support their science. Instruction, interviews, and examples demonstrate how inspiring decision makers to act requires scientists to extract the essence of their work, craft clear messages, simplify visuals, bridge paradigm gaps, and tell compelling narratives. The authors bring these principles to life in the accounts of science champions such as Robert Millikan, Vannevar Bush, scientists at Caltech and MIT, and others. With Championing Science, scientists will learn how to use these vital skills to make an impact.