No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale

Felice C. Frankel is Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University. George M. Whitesides is Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor, Harvard University.

Seemingly invisible objects such as viruses and molecules are imaged in rich detail through high-powered microscopes and photography. Science News 20091121 Whitesides, a professor at Harvard University, is one of the most productive chemists in the world and arguably one of the most inventive. He brings this spirit to the book, an entertaining jaunt through the world of the micro- and nanoscale. The short essays, each dripping with enthusiasm for the topic, are roughly themed around the importance of scientific endeavour on this scale to such areas as medicine, modern computing and the quantum world. It's not just the text that playfully explores some of the stranger aspects of the invisible world. Frankel's photography can be equally creative, most obviously in a photo of a quantum apple with a shadow that appears to belong to a cube. The pictures are a mix of traditional photography, CGI and images produced using various microscopic techniques, and are dazzling in the best coffee-table tradition. The text is just as vibrant, which makes cover-to-cover reading a slightly exhausting experience--but worth it when it rewards the reader with such gems as why young children at a party behave like cellular molecules, or how Beethoven had much in common with plants. -- Colin Barras New Scientist 20091114 No Small Matter conveys science on the nanoscale through a remarkable series of photographs...This is a brilliant book that will help a wide readership to appreciate the wonders of the very small. -- Andrew Briggs Times Higher Education 20091210 Reorienting our eye to the nanoscale is No Small Matter. This coffee-table book juxtaposes images and ideas to encapsulate the significance of size and shape...Exploring where art meets science, the authors search for promising paths to make small-scale science more intuitive...Frankel and Whiteside's book adds gravitas and nuance to the popularization of nanotechnology, articulating its interest and vast opportunities. -- Jeremy