through the pages of this poetic volume, however, exposes the field's underlying luster. A checkerboard of water droplets, a shard of broken glass or a swatch of plastic fabric reveal themselves as things of colorful, otherworldly beauty. The words are no less remarkable, balancing weighty concepts from the laboratory with a literate tone as light and elegant as a spider's web. A wonderful achievement indeed. -- Corey S. Powell Scientific American Ordinary objects can reveal remarkable patterns under a microscope or hand lens. And even without magnification, they can look like something you've never seen before -- at least, they can once photographer Felice Frankel gets hold of them. No less remarkable are her photos of things you really have never seen before: an elastomeric stamp for microprinting, say, which looks like a rainbow mosaic, or the colorful rectangles that turn out to be diamond electron emitters developed for fancy display screens. Frankel and her collaborator, Harvard chemist George M. Whitesides, scrutinize the simplest and most sophisticated materials, explaining what makes them look the way they do. -- Polly Shulman Discover 19971101 Felice Frankel and George M. Whitesides have produced a science book that is unlike any other I've seen...[Frankel] has an eye for framing the beauty of the materials, devices, and physical systems that she photographs. -- James R. Heath Chemical and Engineering News 19980309 Up-close photographs of a wide range of objects and materials result in a spectacular volume of beautiful, often mysterious images. -- H. J. Kirchhoff