Microworlds

Hidden Beauty: Microworlds Revealed, by France Bourely, is one of the finest examples I've seen of a synergy of art and science (as well as a bit of philosophy); extraordinarily beautiful images of the microworld await the lucky reader who purchases this amazing book.

Some of the photographs (captured using a scanning electron microscope), if judged on a purely aesthetic level, arguably rank with some of the great abstract photographs that have ever been taken! Indeed, I am tempted to equate what Dr. Bourely has accomplished here to what Ansel Adams accomplished for the American West with his magnificent large format photography. What Adams represents for the macroscopic world, Dr. Bourely represents for the microscopic one. She is that good...as a guide, as a scientist, as photographer, and as a visionary artist of the highest caliber.

Quite simply this is one of the most beautiful books I've ever had the pleasure of owning and I shall treasure it for a long, long time to come. If you love photography, or science, or abstraction, or philosophy, or ever simply marvel at the ineffable mystery we call the universe, you owe it to yourself to get this book. It is destined to be a classic.