Not too long ago I was playing around online when I read a reference to something called “scientific German.” I’d never heard this phrase before, but it’s just what it sounds like—science vocabulary in the German language, words like microscope and nebula and experiment. The man who wrote the article I read said that German is an excellent language for describing science because it's so precise.

I got to thinking about this, and you know what else needs precise language besides science? Poetry. Poems try to descibe ordinary things as accurately as possible, in a way that offers a fresh perspective on them. Maybe, I thought, science and poetry aren’t so very different. Maybe if we looked at science via some lively German words for it, it would be that much easier to see the poetry there. So, with the aid of my German-English dictionary, I put together an oddball assortment of words I deemed scientific German—for dreamers. Who says science isn’t art?