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Exactly what an image means is a complicated matter and, despite the oft-quoted aphorism, simply creating an image and/or being presented with an image is not sufficient in itself to certify the existence of some object or the truth of some claim. Additional work must be done. This break-out group will focus on both why images themselves are not sufficient and what additional work needs doing to properly contextualize them. Frequently disputes can center around the proper way to understand an image. Understanding how these disputes can be resolved should shed light on how seeing is not believing, and vice versa.

Participants: Gordon Baylis, Doug Buttry, Michael Dickson, David Goldhaber-Gordon, Cyrus Mody, Joe November, Barbara Stafford, Tom Vogt, Andrea Woody

There are many reasons images -- and in particular images of nanoscale objects -- look they way they do. Some of these reasons lie in the origins of the software used to transform data into images (and to compress, and to transmit, and to display, etc. the data). Some of these reasons lie in the instruments used to acquire the data, and how these instruments interact with their objects. Some of these reasons lie in choices made (consciously or not) to exploit visual conventions that have evolved over centuries of making and seeing images. This break-out group will aim to identify and understand the multiple kinds of conventions that underlie images of nanoscale objects, and how these conventions interact with each other in the production, transmission and consumption of images of the nanoscale.

Participants: Nancy Anderston, Davis Baird, Doug Blum, Prasad Boradkar, David Brock, Mark Cohen, Scott Curtis, Jane Frommer, Chris Robinson, Mark Rollins, Rikke Schmidt Kjaergaard

It has been claimed that scientific images have significantly proliferated in the last 80 years, increasingly so in the last 20 years. The first issue that this break-out group will consider is the truth of this claim. What is the history to the proliferation of images? If the claim stands, why have images proliferated? Are images of nanoscale objects merely part of this putative trend or do they play a role in the acceleration of this trend? Are animations and/or moving images part of this proliferation?

Participants: Jim Davis, Ann Johnson, Ronald Jones, Tom Kelly, Angela Krewani, Jung-Won Lee, Martina Merz, Cathy Murphy, Susan Sinott

Certainly part -- and some might claim all -- of what scientists do when they gather, marshal and present evidence aims at telling a story about the how or scientific story telling. This break-out group will examine the ways in which images help to tell stories. Given our cognitive distance from the nanoscale, one could argue that there is an extra burden on the stories told about the nanoscale, and hence an extra burden on the images of the nanoscale in this regard. This break-out group will consider if this is the case and, if so, how nanoscale images are or are not rising to this occasion.

Participants: Annette Barbier, Diane Burk, Michael Lynch, Roger Malina, Patrick McCray, Colin Milburn, Laura Perini, Simon Tarr, Kathryn Vignone, Paul Weiss