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Scientist as Poet

There is a common belief that scientists are cold-blooded types, unemotionally scanning their surroundings for hard facts, seeing only a Calendula officinalis instead of a lovely marigold.

People who believe that have obviously never heard tuatara researchers rhapsodise about the grace of their favourite reptile, nor heard paleobotanists wax eloquent about the wonders of microscopic fossilised flora.

There is something of the poet in the enthusiastic scientist. Physicist Niels Bohr said that one needed to be a poet to discuss atomic theory, dealing in quantum images rather than the hard reality of the mechanistic model.

Loren Eiseley and Carl Sagan have both been lyrical in their particular areas of interest, prompting a lasting image -- for me, at least -- of the peculiar beauties of mudlarks and multiple star systems.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but those who consider science devoid of such have probably missed the wonderful alien landscapes revealed by electron microscope images, and not seen the stunning shots of distant planets sent back by tiny spacecraft.

Harder to see is the beauty contained in the more abstract sciences. Aesthetics is as much a factor in some theories as observation. Physicists have been known to favour theories because of the simplicity and elegance of the mathematical language used to express them.

For most of us, appreciation of the elegance of physics equations and the stark clarity of higher mathematics is beyond us. One tangible area which we all can appreciate is that of science photography.

It's been a privilege and a delight over the past few months to see the entries roll in for the WRONZ-NZSM Science Photography Competition. There are a great people many people out there with an eye for beauty in science, and we thank you all for sharing it with us.

It's easy to admire such images for their artistic merits, with nary a thought for what they reveal. But it is precisely those revelations which bring new appreciation.

A photo of a distant galaxy may be beautiful, but the knowledge of the immense distance from that collection of stars to the photographic plate can give you a sense of the vastness of the universe. The concept of light travelling millions of years to reach us tells us something of the huge sweep of time outside our own small lifespans.

The flaring death of a distant supernova may be but one bright spot amongst many others, but we know it involves titanic nuclear forces which make trifling our own attempts at harnessing the atom.

There's nothing necessarily analytical about this. But it does serve to make us far more aware of what implications are inherent in a collection of white dots. There's a terrible, humbling beauty in that knowledge, which we would all do well to appreciate.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.