Images are the most valuable tool in science for recording and transmitting information. They are more efficient than words and less stultifying than tables; they are also the most effective means of capturing attention. Images can be aesthetic, or informational, or occasionally both. The Mona Lisa is purely aesthetic; a typical electron micrograph is purely informational. A satellite aerial photograph of a mountain range is informational; an Ansel Adams photograph of the same mountains is aesthetic.
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