The result of an unusual collaboration between a physicist with a strong interest in the histories of art and science, and a philosopher with a broad knowledge of science as a human activity, The Art of Science gives readers an appreciation of the activities of science: the hands-on work of experimentation, the struggle to convince people of the validity of novel findings, and the excitement of "eureka" moments. In so doing, the book shows how scientific knowledge is made, and occasionally unmade.

The Art of Science steers a course between two important and contradictory images that have a myth-like status: that of the scientist as computer, and that of the scientist as genius. If we abandon these images to focus on what scientists really do, we see that the sciences are also arts.

To show the artistry of science, text and images are woven together, so that the book makes its arguments not just through stories of science, but through vibrant and arresting illustrations that help to bring the activity of science to life. The Art of Science shows science not as austere and other-worldly, but as textured and wonderfully human.

1. The Computer and the Genius

2. Painting the Invisible

3. Logic and the Construction of Reason

4. Controversies and Consensus

5. Confronting Nature in Lab and Field

6. Doing Science in the Real World

7. The End of Science?

Sources and Further Reading

Acknowledgements

Boris Castel, a nuclear physicist, is the author of several books on particle and nuclear physics. He is a professor of physics at Queen's University as well as the editor of the journal of ideas, Queen's Quarterly.