14 Fun Science-Themed Valentines

Getting a valentine is nice, but getting a valentine that speaks to your interests or even your chosen profession is a little more personal. Here are some valentines that show that scientists and science nerds have a sense of humor.

1. THE SCIENCE FAIR VALENTINE

Software developer Aaron Lerch put his imagination to work to create a valentine for his wife Mindy. The result was a display worthy of any 7th grade science fair project, complete with a graph of his results. In his post about the valentine, you can enlarge this picture enough to read it—it's quite clever!

2. THE PERIODIC TABLE VALENTINE

Sara White of SouthernPestPrints at Etsy offers this periodic table valentine as well as several other science greeting card designs.

3. THE CHEMISTRY VALENTINE

Sugar. You’re as sweet as sugar. That what this valentine is saying. Kirstin at Craftiments offers several cute downloadable science valentines that have the usual romantic sentiments rendered in overly complicated science terms.

4. THE "FACE ON MARS" VALENTINE

Phil Plait via Flickr // CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Dr. Phil Plait, who regularly addresses the issue of pareidolia in space and elsewhere, created a valentine with the "face on Mars" that we've all seen.

5. THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE VALENTINE

Steve Sartha and Chris Ing at Jacks of Science designed a variety of science valentines a few years back. A poem about the expansion of the universe communicates a sentiment of love well.

6. THE EQUATION VALENTINE

Windell Oskay via Flickr // CC BY 2.0

The advantage of sending a complicated formula as a valentine is that you may be required to get together with the recipient to explain it. Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories produced Valentine equations for the last few years that you can print out and send. The 2013 set was math-related, the 2014 set focused on symbols, and the 2015 set is heavy on hearts and arrows. You’ll find a link to a downloadable file with all 18 designs.

7. THE SIERPINSKI VALENTINE

Gotta love fractals, which are cool in any form. Randall Munroe of xkcd stuck infinite hearts into this Sierpinski valentine. In 2010, he posted a bittersweet valentine invoking the scientific method. 

8. THE NERDY POEM VALENTINE

Popular Science asked its readers to send in their geekiest valentine science poetry and pickup lines last year. The poem above by ScottO30 is very cute.

9. SCIENTIST VALENTINES

David Friedman at Ironic Sans made several scientist valentines featuring appropriate puns for each. You recognize Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton, of course. Others depict Carl Sagan, Marie Curie, and Albert Einstein.

10. THE BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY VALENTINE

Alex Santoso set out to represent other scientists who had not been enshrined in valentines in Friedman's collection. Besides the Pavlov valentine shown here, you'll find Stephen Hawking, Amedeo Modigliani, Archimedes, and Nikola Tesla expressing their romantic sides.

11. THE ANATOMY VALENTINE

The heart may beat faster from desire, but we know love is really in the brain. Etsy seller ModDessert has this brainy valentine for sale, among other pun greeting cards in anatomy and other disciplines. Check out one for marine biology and another for astronomy.

12. THE MICROBIOLOGY VALENTINE

Sébastien Bontemps-Gallo of the University of Lille produced a valentine in a petri dish! He grew the microbe Serratia marcescens, which produces the red pigment prodigiosin, in an agar medium.

13. THE DNA-THEMED VALENTINE

Etsy seller Biiiinx offers a Valentine with the ultimate sexy science pun revolving around the structure of DNA.

14. THE BIOCHEMISTRY AND SPECTROMETRY VALENTINE

This overly-explanatory take on the classic “Roses are red” poem is part of a roundup of pun-filled science valentines created by Kelly Oakes and Matthew Tucker of Buzzfeed last year.