Seeing the Invisible

Seeing the Invisible

Science, Art, and Art-Inspired Science

von Huabei Jiang

Seeing the Invisible: Science, Art, and Art-Inspired Science  explores the dynamic relationship between scientific inquiry and artistic creation. Author Huabei Jiang draws on disciplines such as biomedical engineering, optics and photonics, applied mathematics, and physics to weave together the concepts of “science in art” and “art in science.” The book transitions from topics such as diffuse optical tomography and quantitative photoacoustic tomography to aesthetically inspired studies of symmetry breaking, topology, phase-contrast imaging, and the second law of thermodynamics. Chapters cover a broad range of subjects, including Monet’s atmospheric effects, Chinese calligraphy, and the application of the golden ratio in both classical and quantum physics. The author presents his framework of aesthetic geometry (AeG), a method for exploring science through an aesthetic lens and creating art through scientific principles.

Written in a tutorial style, the book condenses cutting-edge research in biomedical imaging while demonstrating how aesthetic reasoning can lead to new problem formulations, modeling strategies, and visualization techniques. The book will engage advanced researchers and graduate students in fields such as biomedical engineering, medical imaging, optics, physics, and applied mathematics, as well as scholars in art-science studies and practitioners interested in creativity, visualization, and scientific imaging as a cultural technique. The result is a concise work that exemplifies rigor without exaggeration, illustrating how focused aesthetic attention can enhance theory, experimentation, and design.

Highlights

• Examines the dynamic relationship between scientific inquiry and artistic creation Draws on biomedical engineering, optics, mathematics, and physics to merge science in art and art in science Introduces methods for examining science through an aesthetic lens and for creating art based on scientific principles

Über den Autor

Huabei Jiang, Ph.D., joined the University of South Florida (USF) in 2017 as a professor and founding faculty member of USF’s Medical Engineering Department and the founding Director of the USF Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging. He began his career as an assistant professor of physics at Clemson University in 1997 and was promoted to full professor there in 2003. He joined the University of Florida (UF) in 2005 as a founding senior faculty member of the newly established Biomedical Engineering Department. He became the J. Crayton Pruitt Family Endowed Professor in 2008. He has published over 500 peer-reviewed scientific articles and patents and is the author of several books, including Fluorescence Molecular Tomography: Principles and Applications (Springer, 2022) and Thermoacoustic Tomography: Principles and Applications (IOP Publishing, 2020). Professor Jiang is a Fellow of Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America), the International Society of Optical Engineering (SPIE), and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Outside of his research and teaching, he enjoys practicing Chinese Calligraphy and painting (ink/color pencil, watercolor, pastel, acrylic, and oil). He had two one-person exhibitions of his artworks in July 2019 and August 2023 in Chengdu, China, and has won multiple awards in several international art competitions.