Exploring the Nanoworld > News
In May, 14 striking, larger-than-life photographic prints that are both comfortingly organic and starkly abstract will enable patrons of Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse, Madison, to visualize a scientific world that’s rarely seen outside the laboratory.
“Sights Unseen: Images of the Nanoscale” is an art exhibit featuring research images captured by faculty, staff, and students in the UW-Madison National Science Foundation-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center on Nanostructured Interfaces and the NSF-funded Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center. The exhibit runs throughout May, with an opening reception at the coffeehouse May 4, from 7 to 9 p.m.
Nanotechnology is a new area in science and engineering that deals with incredibly small materials. These materials are on the scale of nanometers, a billion of a meter. (A one-gallon can of paint, painted one nanometer thick, would cover the entire UW-Madison campus.)
Materials at this super-small scale can behave in new ways. For example, nanoscale gold is red, and nanoscale aluminum spontaneously combusts. Scientists and engineers hope to use these unique properties in new and improved applications, ranging from faster computers to cancer-fighting medical treatments.
The pictures in the “Sights Unseen” exhibit bring this super-small world into the limelight by showcasing its beauty. Among the images are black-and-white nano-sized rods that looks like massive trees toppled by a strong wind; and a computer-generated representation of data that resembles psychedelic posters from the 70s.
Mother Fools Coffeehouse is located at 1101 Williamson St., Madison. Its hours are weekdays from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. and weekends from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.
For more information, see the Sights Unseen flyer.
Angela Johnson, IPSE intern, has created polymer flowers made from polyvinylalchohol that contains gold and silver nanoparticles. The gold particles are so small that they appear red; the silver particles are so small that they appear yellow.
Exploring the Nanoworld | MRSEC Nanostructured Interfaces
Copyright © 2008 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under DMR Grant No. 0520527
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.