Beautiful Chemistry

It is hard for students to associate chemistry with beauty. The image of chemistry in schools is mostly linked to something dangerous, dirty, or smelly. Yet Dr. Yan Liang, a collaborator and a materials scientist with a Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota, is launching a campaign to change that image. The result of his work is now online at beautifulchemistry.net.

To bring the beauty of chemistry to the general public, Dr. Liang uses 4K UltraHD cameras and special lenses to capture chemical reactions in astonishing detail and advanced computer graphics to render stunning images of molecular structures.

Using the beauty of science to interest students has rarely been taken seriously by educators. The federal government has invested billions of dollars in instructional materials development. But from a layman's point of view, it is hard to imagine how children can be engaged in science if they do not fall in love with it. Beautiful Chemistry represents an attempt that could inspire a whole new genre of high-quality educational materials based on breathtaking scientific visualizations. How about Beautiful Physics and Beautiful Biology?

Our work is well aligned with this vision. Our interactive, visual Energy2D simulations bring a beautiful world of heat and mass flow to students like never seen before; our Energy3D software creates splendid 3D scenes based on scientific calculations; and our infrared visualization of the real world has uncovered a beautiful hidden universe through an IR lens. These materials demonstrate computational and experimental ways to marry science and beauty and have resulted in great enticements in science classrooms.

BTW, Dr. Liang is the artist who designed the splash panes of Energy2D and Energy3D.