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There are many examples that could show how images (be they drawings, photographs, etc.) have helped us understand science. In the following note, we share six images that forever changed the history of science in the world.
–Galileo’s moons. On March 13, 1610, Galileo Galilei published his astronomical treatise The Messenger Starwhich represented a shift in perspective on our identity and place in the world and provided crucial support for Copernicus’ heliocentric theory.
This text contained Galileo’s first observations were made with a simple telescope that he had built himself. Galileo saw objects revolving around the Sun rather than the Earth, as well as moons revolving around Jupiter and hundreds of stars in the Milky Way. He watched and He drew the moon like no one had ever done it before.
Moon phases drawn by Galileo Galilei
He painted the moon in his watercolors with light, dark and shadow with unique precision. Until then it was believed that the moon was smooth as a canvas, but Galileo showed it with its craters, mountains and valleys. These drawings of the moon were the origin of modern astronomy.
Images that changed the history of science
–The flea inside Micrography. A little over 50 years later, in 1665, Rober Hooke published Micrography. In contrast to Galileo, Hooke aimed his devices (the first microscopes) towards this the smallest and smallest. However, at that time only a small group of scientists and famous people had access to microscopes Hooke was the first to spread science and draw what he saw through it on a large scale.
He drew all kinds of everyday objects that he observed with his microscopes with precision that had never been seen before. Out of Descriptions of everything from ice and snow to cork, fossils, charcoal and detailed descriptions of animals and animal parts. So, A flea observed under a microscope turned out to be nature’s great prodigy.
Flea seen under the microscope by Robert Hooke.
In Micrography the term cell appears for the first timerelated to the pores observed in a thin sheet of cork. Micrography was probably the first bestseller historian.
–“I find”. More than a century and a half later, in 1831, the young Charles Darwin embarked on the HMS Beagle under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy. During this trip, Darwin collected the plants, fossils and animals he found and observed them in detail. The Beagle crossing shaped his entire life; was the basis for the ideas he developed for years in England and which led to his ideas Theory of evolution by natural selection.
Perhaps one of Darwin’s most revolutionary drawings, and one that most influenced 20th century science, was the one he made in one of his notebooks in 1837: a simple sketch of a tree with a few branches. At the top of the page he wrote: “I find”.
Darwin’s first diagram of an evolutionary tree.
On the diagram, he identified each branch with a letter that represented a species He suggested that they were all related, having evolved from a common ancestor. It was the first depiction of the Tree of Life. Twenty years later, Darwin presented his book The origin of species.
–Cajal’s neuron. If there is one person for whom drawing and photography were essential to his scientific research, it is Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Cajal discovered this as a child Operating the camera obscura and from a young age a passion was awakened in him that lasted until the end of his days: the photography.
He used his microscopes to look through them Photoplates and so be able to understand what happened there. Improves the Sensitivity of the plates, shortened exposure time, improved contrast and sharpness of the images as well as the chemical treatment of the development. This gave me significantly better images.
Santiago was a pioneer of color photography. At the beginning of the 20th century he made some of the first color photographs in Spain. He also enjoyed drawing.
In 1887, Cajal became enthusiastic about a new dyeing technique that the Italian had developed Camilo Golgi. This technique allowed us to see the complete structure of the cells of the nervous system in a way never before possible. However, the coloring had many disadvantages, so Santiago decides to improve it.
This silver staining was very similar to photographic development, and Cajal used his photographic knowledge to improve neuron staining techniques. But what the scientist sees under the microscope are very complex images of the brain.
Santiago has to interpret them and above all Explain what you see to finish defining his theory. He doesn’t use photography for this, but rather the drawing. This is how he develops his Neural theory: The neuron is the anatomical and physiological unit.
Purkinje neuron, drawn by Ramón y Cajal.
–Photography 51. An image that represents a radical change in 20th century science is the so-called “Photo 51” by Rosalind Franklin; A Image of DNA obtained by X-ray diffraction in 1952.
When the crystallized form of a molecule (e.g. DNA) is exposed to X-rays, the atoms in the crystal form They diffract some of the rays, forming a diffraction pattern that allows us to interpret the structure of the molecule.. This picture, a perfect Xwas one of the crucial tests confirmed the spiral staircase structure: the famous double helix of DNA.
First image of DNA obtained by X-ray diffraction in 1952.
–Images from the James Webb Space Telescope. In July 2022, NASA released the first images from the James Webb Telescope, showing the Universe as we have never seen it before: from neighboring exoplanets to the most distant observable galaxies in the early Universe.
Dying Star, recorded by James Webb, released in 2022.
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