Peter K. Walhout

The various aesthetic phenomena found repeatedly in the scientific enterprise stem from the role of God as artist. If the Creator is an artist, how and why natural scientists study the divine art work can be understood using theological aesthetics and the philosophy of art. The aesthetic phenomena considered here are as follows. First, science reveals beauty and the sublime in natural phenomena. Second, science discovers beauty and the sublime in the theories that are developed to explain natural phenomena. Third, the search for beauty often guides scientists in their work. Fourth, where beauty is perceived, feelings of the sublime often also follow upon further contemplation. This linkage of beauty in science with truth and the sublime runs counter to most aesthetic theory since Kant. Scholarship in theological aesthetics has recently argued that the modern and postmodern elevation of the sublime over beauty is merely a preference that reveals a bias against transcendence—against God. If doing and understanding science can show this sundering of the sublime from the beautiful to be in error, science also gives evidence of transcendence.

The lateral diffusion dynamics of rhodamine B(RB) in polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) thin films has been studied with single-molecule confocal fluorescence microscopy. The Films were made with sodium poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS) and poly(diallydimethlyammonium chloride) (PDDA). Analysis of the real-time emission intensity traces reveals three diverse components of translational motion: (1) fast diffusion of RB through the confocal detection volume; (2) reversible tracer adsorption processes; and (3) nanoconfined diffusion, These processes cover a wide range of time scales. Analysis via fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) involves multicomponent fitting of the autocorrelated emission data. The model includes it free Brownian diffusion parameter, D, and two rate constants of desorption, k(-1) and k(-2). For RB in a PSS/PDDA thin film made with 0.01 M NaCl in the polyelectrolyte buildup solutions, D = 1.7x10(-7) cm(2)/s,k(-1)=30 s(-1), and k(-2) = 0.1 s(-1). FCS was also performed on RB/PEM samples made with NaCl concentrations of the buildup solutions ranging from 0.01 to 0.7 M. A weak dependence of D and k-1 on NaCl concentration was observed while k(-2) increased linearly with [NaCl].