Let’s create an image of the future

This year, the theme for National Chemistry Week (NCW) is “Picture Perfect Chemistry,” which celebrates the science of imaging. An image is a representation of something. Scientists use imaging to tell a story about an object or situation, and imaging is especially valuable when describing details that the eye cannot see. We use medical imaging to discern details about the human body, scanning electron microscopes to image surfaces at the atomic level, and telescopes to gather data about objects light-years away. We try to imagine how a molecule might look and act on the microscale, and we use this image to explain its behavior on the macroscale. In today’s world, everyone seems to have a camera in their pocket, and the pictures they capture create a visual record of things people want to remember. The mind also creates images; imagination can create an image of something we’ve only dreamed about.