Those Beautiful Minds

I discovered the gorgeous world of life as seen through the light microscope on Nikon's Small World galleries, where Nikon has rewarded the world's best photomicrographers who make critically important scientific contributions to life sciences, bio-research and materials science for over 30 years. I was introduced to this website by my brilliant scientist brother (see his 2007 Image of Distinction here). I come from a family full of scientists, and although I have chosen the field of arts and humanities, I always find the beauty of natural sciences to be simultaneously mesmerising, mystifying, and liberating. The purity, the simplicity, the complexity, the clarity. I believe that science, in its purest form, is not unlike music - they both help lift the veil of perception, even if just for an instant, and reveal to us the world as it really is (Schopenhauer's the World as Will, Kant's the Thing-in-Itself, Socrates' and Plato's Oneness/Wholeness, Advaita Vedanta's That Which Is, and of course, Tao in Taoist philosophy). I should probably write a separate post on this topic, which is the subject of my MA thesis, as it is something that fascinates and interests me unboundedly.

I would like to share some of the incredibly beautiful images from the large (and fantastical) selections Nikon showcases, which curiously remind me of quite a few composers' music I have been listening to these days - Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Béla Bartók. I find (or more appropriately, "feel") a wondrously intriguing and dynamic parallel between the images and the music. I have picked one piece from each composer to be included in this post (scroll down past the images). Lastly, this is one of my favourite quotations, and I think it illustrates my point in the previous paragraph with elegance and eloquence.

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man."
(Albert Einstein, The World as I See It)

*This blog post is dedicated to my brother, who encouraged me to create a world of my own encompassing all that I love by starting a personal blog. Thank you go-go! ♥

6th Place, 1984. Per H. Kjeldsen, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Slow melt of meso-erythriol (40x), Polarized light.

8th Place, 1983. Du Boistesselin, Chu. La Pitie’, Paris, France. Antique 19th century microscope slide featuring composition of mounted butterfly scales and diatoms (35x), Darkfield.

18th Place, 1982. Vijai Shukla, Texaco, Inc., Bellaire, Texas, USA. Calcium sulfate crystals in matrix of small calcium-magnesium carbonate crystals in 100 million year old rock (20x), Polarized light.

8th Place, 1981. Steven B. Warner, Celanese Research Company, Summit, New Jersey, USA. Crystals of hippuric acid (50x), Polarized light.

8th Place, 1982. Terry Ashley, University of Tennessee, Department of Anatomy, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Leaf scales of olive (Eleagnus) (320x), Darkfield.

13th Place, 2008. Milan Kosanovic, Belgrade, Serbia, Recrystallized Vitamin C (10x), Polarized light.

15th Place, 1977. Ralph L. Shook, Hemet, California, USA. Leaf whole mount, Pittosporum (31x), Transmitted Polarized Light Illumination.

7th Place, 2008. Dr. Margaret Oechsli, Jewish Hospital, Heart & Lung Institute, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Mitomycin (anti-cancer drug) (10x), Polarized light.

15th Place, 1978. James Bell, Allston, Massachusetts, USA. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) crystals (125x), Crossed Polarized Light.

13th Place, 1977. Gary Wayne Cox, Fullerton, California, USA. Tapeworm found in carnivores (50x), Hoffman Modulation Contrast.

18th Place, 1979. Scott Mitchener, San Carlos, California, USA. Slide from small section of another slide. Finger holding grass. Interference (Hoffman prism) with Polarized Light.

7th Place, 1983. George J. Wilder, Harvard University, Petersham, Massachusetts, USA. Thin cross section of basswood (Tilia sp.) (25.2x), Darkfield.

1st Place, 1981. David Gnizak, Ferro Corp., Technical Center, Independence, Ohio, USA. Collapsed bubbles from an annealed experimental electronic sealing glass (55x). Reflected Light, Nomarski Differential Interference Contrast.

The art of intermediate filament assembly. Keratin organizes into cross linked networks all by itself, say Lee and Coulombe. The paper is part of the August 10 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology.

4th Place, 1983. John K. Douglass, Duke University, Zoology Department, Durham, North Carolina, USA. Compound eye of grass shrimp stained with methylene blue (200x), Phase contrast.

11th Place, 1983. James W. Smith, Ferro Corporation Research Center, Independence, Ohio, USA. Spherulites of lead chromate (Crocoite) on the surface of a decorative glaze (60x), Differential interference contrast.

5th Place, 1983. Dr. A. Sen-Gupta, Panjab University, Department of Biophysics, Chandigarh, India. Mulitiple exposures (4) of finely scratched tin foil using blue filter. Fifth expousure of condenser image using red filter (32x), Brightfield.

9th Place, 1983. Per H. Kjeldsen, University of Michigan, School of Dentistry, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Slow melt of testosterone propionate (50x), Polarized light.

"... music, since it passes over the Ideas, is... quite independent of the phenomenal world, positively ignores it, and, to a certain extent, could still exist even if there were no world at all, which cannot be said of the other arts."
(Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

Glenn Gould plays Alban Berg's Piano Sonata Opus 1


Igor Stravinsky: "Movements for Piano and Orchestra" (1958-59). An example of Stravinsky's late period serial work.


Anton Webern, "Orchestral Pieces," Op. Post.


Schoenberg: Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19, performed by Michel Beroff.


Béla Bartók (1881-1945): From Mikrokosmos, Progressive Piano Pieces vol. VI: 140. Free Variations (Variations libres/Freie Variationen). Allegro molto/ 142. From the Diary of a Fly (Ce que la mouche raconte/Aus dem Tagebuch einer Fliege). Allegro/ 149. From Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm (Six dances bulgares/Sechs Tänze in bulgarischen Rhythmen): no. 2. Béla Bartók, piano. Recorded in 1940.