Science!

[taimatsu]

If you had to come up with a small simple picture that expressed the idea of SCIENCE! or something connected to it, what would you draw?

(I have a typography project involving pictograms - I have to do three and only have two so far.)

Alternatively, what's the best thing you've seen in the Science Museum, if you've been there?

Comments

[angeoverhere.livejournal.com]

Probably something like a flask/test tube, with bubbling liquid in it. Or something like this picture! Or the kind of logos they use in Brainiac (http://www.g4tv.com/brainiac/index.html)

Tangent - I know someone who spent their PhD getting people to draw pictures of scientists!!

[crocodilewings.livejournal.com]

Man with a big grin and a lab coat holding a test tube up.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Preferably a man with crazy Einstein hair.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

What do you (taimatsu) want; an image which symbolises science, or which symbolises the public perception of science? Einstein looking like a superannuated sheepdog is a stereotype, and has nothing to do with science. Einstein when he did his groundbreaking work was a young man. (Indeed, most groundbreaking science is done by Ph.D.s and postdocs; Einstein was unusual in being able to make considerable advances to his fields all his life.)

A better symbol of science would be a photograph (if you can find one) of Einstein as a young man writing equations on a blackboard.

[shinydan.livejournal.com]

http://xkcd.com/c179.html

The formula in this says it all for me. 8)

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaargh!

I have ranted about this before (http://pozorvlak.livejournal.com/40478.html).

Besides, there are excellent reasons why we should use 2π rather than π.

[shinydan.livejournal.com]

The character's response is that of most non-mathematicians. It was certainly mine. It sums up how Science! does strange and wonderful things sometimes. the explanation for this formula is something I simply cannot comprehend, no matter how many times it's broken down into words of one syllable for me. But it works, and the apparent complexity in something as simple as e^pi.i=-1 is, to non-scientists, pretty cool.

In an appallingly baffling way, of course.

[cultureofdoubt.livejournal.com]

I don't think that formula's science. It's maths.

[aendr.livejournal.com]

Science: A conical flask

Science Museum: The foucault's pendulum - but you can't really pictogram that.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

An atom or molecule!

But a bubbling flask would do.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

How about a reasonably long molecule, in space-filling representation at one end, gradually turning into a ball-and-stick model halfway along (preferably so you can see it's hand-assembled), and finally into a chemical formula at the other end?

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I love it!

[flamma-caverna.livejournal.com]

Not at all, that's not far from the truth.. ;)

Atoms, especially the ones drawn with swirly electrons, often say "radioactive" to the man on the omnibus. Personally I think the bubbling conical flask is the best universal and easily understandable symbol.

ps. real scientists don't use test-tubes

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

We just do that for fun in our spare time. Or when our applications for funding have been turned down one time too many...

[dystopiac.livejournal.com]

DNA double helix.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

The simple 'atom' symbol:

Failing that, wot she sed: a simplified sketch of the DNA helix.

Alternatively, there's no best thing in the Science Museum; but the original Difference Engine comes close, for the sheer sense of awe among those who know what it means.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Your Bohr atom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_atom) is an apposite symbol, but most people will fail to get the reasons why.

It's apposite because it was a good scientific theory: it was proposed to explain observational data, and was accepted because it did a good job of explaining them; and it made predictions that could be tested.

But it's also apposite as a symbol of science because it was later superseded as a theory by a more refined theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_configuration#Orbitals_table), to which the Bohr atom approximates under certain circumstances.

But, as I said, most people will fail to pick that up from just seeing it.

[emperor]

A microscope.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

That was my thought too.

[doctor-frank.livejournal.com]

Thirded - the whole conical flask thing is chronically cliched, and at least a slightly larger proportion of scientists actually use microscopes than conical flasks.

Personally, I would be tempted to try and do some sort of image demonstrating the scale of scientific knowledge, by juxtaposing an atom with an image of the solar system. That may be too complex for what you need, though.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Given its place in the history of science, how about a telescope? Hooke's microscope was the beginnings of modern biology, sure, but Galileo's telescope was pretty much the beginnings of modern natural science.

[Incredible guy, Hooke, by the way. Have you read Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle?]

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

The Periodic Table. I used to love the one in the science museum when I was little, cus of all those button that lit up. Only recently did I learn what a work of genius it was, when listening to Bill Bryson's History of Nearly Everything.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Depends how serious the context is.

Serious end: A conical flask drawn as an outline, containing dark liquid to about 1/3 of the way up.

Cheerful end: A 60-s style cartoon space rocket with a big whoosh of flame coming out of the back.

[sea-cucumber.livejournal.com]

My favourite bit in the science museum was the space section :D

[wyrdness.livejournal.com]

I always think of a light bulb, I think it's bound up with the "flash of inspiration" thing :)

My favourite part of the Science Museum was the kids bit. I could have spent hours with blocks trying different ways to reach the designated line without them all tipping over :D

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Interesting how many people have gone for conical flasks, or other bits of chemical glassware. How about something astronomical? A picture from the Hubble telescope, maybe? neoanjou has some nice userpics along these lines. Or something from a cloud chamber (http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=cloud%20chamber&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=firefox&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi), or some other piece of Big Physics apparatus? The inside of a tokamak (http://images.google.co.uk/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&client=firefox&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&q=tokamak&btnG=Search+Images)? A view inside a cell? Some sort of anatomical diagram, with labels? A curve, with tangents sketched? Possibly some real-world thing, like a cable from a suspension bridge, which morphs into a diagram with tangents and labels (and possibly formulae) as you get closer to one side of the picture? [similar to lethargic_man's excellent idea, above]

I'm afraid the image I get in my head whenever someone says SCIENCE! is Ali G holding up an object, and saying "When I let go of this, it will fall to the ground, because of an invisible thing in the air, called Science." [thud]