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April 13, 2005
Reconnecting science and art
A short piece in New Music Box reminds us of the close and symbiotic connections between art and science, despite the efforts of the past few centuries to separate the two:
In the modern world, we have seen scientific knowledge assume a status as the most valuable or authoritative kind of knowledge, while artistic knowledge and intelligence is relegated to a secondary status....Yet equations are metaphors for reality and perhaps have more similarity to art than we might usually accord them.
It's a topic explored in several books, one favorite being Jamie James' Music of the Spheres, where he laments the lost connections that came with the Industrial Revolution:
After the revelations of modern scientific enquiry, educated people will never again be able to face the universe, now unimaginably complex, with anything like the serenity and certitude that existed for most of our history
With all the battles in universities and public schools between emphasizing math or art, science or music, technical or creative writing, we lose the larger point. These are all 'ways of knowing,' and all required for an elegant engagement with our world.
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