Book excerpt: A sonnet to science presents an account of six ground-breaking scientists who also wrote poetry, and the effect that this had on their lives and research. How was the universal computer inspired by Lord Byron? Why was the link between malaria and mosquitos first captured in the form of a poem? Who did Humphry Davy consider to be an ‘illiterate pirate’? Written by leading science communicator and scientific poet Dr Sam Illingworth, A sonnet to science presents an aspirational account of how these two disciplines can work together, and in so doing aims to inspire both current and future generations of scientists and poets that these worlds are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary in nature.