ABSTRACT
Modern science is for the most part a highly visual affair, and never more so than in the age of computer graphics. An astonishingly wide range of instruments, technologies and media are used to ‘see’ effects, including means for rendering visible those phenomena that cannot normally be seen by the human eye. Even emissions beyond the scope of the eye, such as the sound waves used to survey the ocean floor, can be used to construct ‘pictures’ which are designed to be understood through sight. In exploring theories and expounding results, there are few sciences which do not resort to visual demonstrations at some stage, and many place illustration at the heart of their systems of exposition. We only need open a typical issue of Nature or Science to see a brilliant array of visual material, not only in the articles but also in the advertisements. Much of what we learn about science as an activity — its practitioners, its equipment, its buildings — is acquired from various forms of visual representation, most notably from the photographic media. The popular image of the scientist, whether the obsessed boffin in a white lab coat working to combat a deadly virus or the lunatic genius bent on making Frankenstein’s monster, comes to us in visual form, not least through the screens of cinemas and television sets.
