This book aims to stimulate the reader to think anew about some of the relationships and differences between science and art, and to challenge some of the common notions about particular 'famous experiments'. Acknowledgments vii Introduction What is an Experiment? What is Beauty? 1(10) Section 1 Asking Questions of Nature How Does Your Garden Grow? 11(11) Van Helmont's Willow Tree and the Beauty of Quantification An Element Compounded 22(15) Cavendish's Water and the Beauty of Detail New Light 37(17) The Curies' Radium and the Beauty of Patience Radiation Explained 54(13) Rutherford's Alpha Particles and the Beauty of Elegance The Elements Came in One by One 67(34) Seaborgium's Chemistry: Small is Beautiful Divertissement 1 The Chemical Theatre 92(9) Section 2 Posing New Questions Molecules Take Shape 101(23) Pasteur's Crystals and the Beauty of Simplicity Divertissement 2 Myths and Romances 119(5) Life and How To Make It 124(15) Urey and Miller's Prebiotic Chemistry and the Beauty of Imagination Not so Noble 139(12) Bartlett's Xenon Chemistry and the Beauty of Simplemindedness Section 3 The Art of Making Things Nature Rebuilt 151(24) Woodward, Vitamin B12 and the Beauty of Economy Plato's Molecules 175(16) Paquette's Dodecahedrane and the Beauty of Design Coda Chemical Aesthetics 191(6) Bibliography 197(8) Subject Index 205