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"The Pillars of Creation" is the name of this famous gas formation in the Eagle nebula. The pillars are in the process of forming new stars, which explains the origin of the epic name. Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Mister James Watson, a pioneering geneticist and biologist, studying a model of DNA. James Watson, along with Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins won the 1962 Nobel Prize for the co-discovery of DNA
The Earth "rising" above the horizon of the moon. Taken during the Apollo 8 Mission. The first time when a human eye saw the whole planet Earth from outer space.
This photograph shows a very special solar eclipse, which played a crucial role in the confirmation of Einstein's great theory of general relativity. Take by Sir Arthur Eddington it marks the moment when Einstein truly climbed to the mount Olympus of science. The most beautiful way of confirming a theory ever, isn't it?
The famous picture of Albert Einstein after his 72nd birthday celebration back in 1951. In fact Einstein himself loved this picture so much that he ordered nine prints from the photographer Arthur Sasse.
A rather artistic photograph from the 1960 October 17 issue of LIFE presenting a birth of a new industry of fiber optics -- "a new way to see around curves".
A colourised version of the 1927 Solvay Conference showing the brightest minds of physics of the day. Among the great scientists shown in the photograph you can find Marie Curie, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Planck, Wolgang Pauli, Albert Einstein and others.
Last Einstein's blackboard shot after his death in 1955. As the photographer noted, the study is in the state of "controlled chaos". Interestingly the blackboard in the picture holds the last equations ever written by Einstein.
"The Trinity" was the codename of the first ever nuclear device. This photograph, showing the explosion only 0.025 seconds after detonation, marks the beginning of the nuclear age.
So recently I been seeing more and more of these lists of “the most iconic”, “the greatest” or “the most powerful” photographs ever taken. In particular, “40 of the Most Powerful Photographs Ever Taken” list inspired me to do something similar with science pictures, only with less pictures and perhaps something a little bit less dramatic. What I wanted to do is to select the most iconic pictures of science. And by iconic I mean pictures, which have stayed in our minds and culture for decades. Naturally, some pictures have a much lower quality than others, but I still felt like I should add them due to their symbolic significance. Also some of the pictures were added for their artistic appeal (like the cool fiber optics picture). So thanks for checking this out and feel free to write a comment below if I missed some important picture.
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