great picture Anna!


> Re: Nanoflower Bouquet
>
> Here is the original image:

http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v5/n1s/images/7400223-i2.jpg

But
> I sort of like the bright blue version of this one
> better:

http://www.ambascience.co.uk/IMG/jpg/Nanoflower_230x230-2.jpg

At
> any rate, it's the same picture. The image is of a
> nanoflower bouquet, which is actually a complex structure
> of silicon carbide nanowires grown from a vapor phase.
> The morphology of this thing can be precisely controlled
> by varying the growth conditions, which can result
> in all kinds of neat configurations. These particular
> structures were created at the Nanoscience Center
> at the University of Cambridge,  UK, and the
> image was published in EMBO reports and can be found
> on www.nature.com.

I, personally, think this
> is absolutely amazing. The picture is incredibly beautiful,
> and it's just so striking that some tiny network of
> nanowires can create something that looks like a bouquet
> of flowers. People don't usually think of flowers
> as a "collection of tiny particles" or anything of
> the sort, and find that they are just aesthetically
> pleasing because they're in front of you and they're
> pretty. Whereas with this picture, you're looking
> at something that resembles a flower, but it's beautiful
> and captivating not only because it's a flower and
> it's pretty, but also because as a scientist, you
> become instantly fascinated with what this thing actually
> is and how it was created, and then come full circle
> to the realization that, "hey, it's kind of like a
> flower, and it's really pretty."

This is actually
> probably one of the coolest and most memorable pictures
> I've ever seen.

Anna Belak
Dept. of Physics
Virginia
> Tech

NSF Program Director (on assignment from the AIP and the Society of Physics Students to serve as the Robert Noyce Scholarship Program Director at the National Science Foundation)