The Future of Seeing - Daniel Sodickson ****

At first glance a book about imaging technology sounds like one of those promotional titles that technology companies make about themselves that no one will ever read - but with a light, approachable touch, Daniel Sodickson takes us from the imaging mechanisms of nature, through the early technology to the present and the potential future - featuring both benefits and risks - with aplomb.

It wouldn't have struck me to include eyes in a history of imaging, but Sodickson successfully does so, going back even further to the first biological cells developing. As he asks in his opening '"OK, wait just a second!" I hear you cry. "What does imaging have to do with the first cells?"' - this chatty approach pulls the reader in very effectively. (You'll have to read the book to get the answer.) We then get on to the first augmentation of nature, using lenses to modify the flow of light. 

As always there's the potential for a non-historian to distort history of science, but on the whole Sodickson avoids the familiar traps, though I slightly question the idea of Robert Hooke being called 'England's Leonardo' by anyone serious, and was a bit disappointed with the way a chapter that finishes with introducing photography and moving pictures with Niépce and Daguerre without mentioning Fox Talbot or Muybridge.

The advantage of seeing things differently from the imager's viewpoint is we can then move on straight to X-rays and computerised tomography (in a chapter bluntly labelled 'slicing without cutting'). At this point, Sodickson takes a step back into the nature of an image - and what they are in the modern sense. He pulls together the current position with a dip into the democratisation of imaging due to ubiquitous technology and the impact of AI before plunging into future possibilities - from the use of non-optical imaging, to how AI will go much further not just in creating images but in understanding image content, covering positives, for instance in medical use, but also negatives in terms of privacy. There's no doubt that imaging's impact on the everyday will continue to develop and expand. As Sodickson says in his epilogue 'The story of imaging, meanwhile, is not just a story of experts and their tools. It is a broader human story.'

My only real complaint about the book is the chapter 'The community of imagers' which has photos (not surprisingly) of a page-full of people working in the field with a series of (metaphorical) snapshots of who they are and what they cover. It's common for scientists writing popular science to overdo acknowledgements of other scientists, and there's always a danger of it becoming a slightly tedious list of accomplishments. There are a few interesting points in here, but I'm not sure it improves the book.

Overall, an interesting take on a topic that is rarely thought of by the rest of us as a field in its own right, and hence is refreshing to experience in Sodickson's capable hands.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here