Colored drops of water respond to a grid of hydrophobic and hydrophilic materials on a flat surface.
The water drops take squarish shapes by spreading across the hydrophilic surface and stopping at hydrophobic gridlines etched at 3 mm intervals. The hydrophilic surface is a self-assembled monolayer.
Laboratory of George Whitesides, Harvard. Image by Felice Frankel, MIT.
Careful choice of esthetic aspects of an experiment (coloring the water in this case) can turn a prosaic image into one that captures attention. Esthetics of scientific imagery are central to the conferences and workshops.
