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THE POETRY AND
MUSIC OF SCIENCE
PRAISE FOR THE POETRY AND MUSIC OF SCIENCE
‘By carefully engaging with historic and contemporary mathematicians, scientists, writers, artists, and composers, McLeish is able to illuminate the commonalities inherent in scientific and artistic endeavours—both the moments of creative inspiration and the diligent, methodical efforts that follow. The author provides the most sustained, learned, and insightful exploration of the mutual characteristics of music and mathematics that I know of. McLeish offers us an expansive perspective on the human yearning to discover and create. In doing so, he also provides a release from narrow views of the sciences and the arts and an opportunity to reconcile diverse academic specializations. As a musician and historian, I cherish this book for the insights it gives into both the compositions I perform and the academic work I engage in. The book is a delight to read and a profound encouragement for those of us who create—on stage, or in academic forums.’
Elaine Stratton Hild, University of Würzburg
‘In this wide-ranging and engaging meditation on the parallel work of imagination, inspiration, and intuition found in both art and science, McLeish closes the illusory gap between the two cultures. McLeish, a physicist, heals the divisions in our modern communities of learning by drawing on his considerable knowledgeable of history, art, philosophy, music and literature.’
Bernard Lightman, President of the History of Science Society and Distinguished Research Professor of the Humanities at York University
‘Tom McLeish has written a book which shows as well as tells. It reinstates creativity and imagination as being as much part of the practice of science as close observation, experiment and rigour. Reading it is a pleasure for all parts of the brain, and the heart as well as the mind. It offers insights to help everyone interested in the future conduct of science, and in the creation and sharing of wisdom and beauty in the 21st century.’
Claire Craig, Chief Science Policy Officer, the Royal Society
‘Tom McLeish writes as a lifelong scientist with a rich appreciation of the arts and a deep historical knowledge. He makes a compelling case for seeing the scientific and the artistic imagination as intertwined and interdependent. McLeish shows us that science and the arts never have been, never could be, and never should be two divided cultures.’
John Holmes, Professor of Victorian Literature and Culture, University of Birmingham
‘This kind of book is rarer than it should be, and all the more valuable for that. It dares to take seriously and probe deeply the interplay of the arts and the sciences, neither setting one above the other nor looking for glib connections but instead interrogating both as expressions of human creativity and imagination. In place of the tired and reductive notion of “Two Cultures”, Tom McLeish reveals—passionately, persuasively, and with great scholarship—that so many meaningful points of contact exist between the sciences and music, literature and visual art that by the end of the book it would seem strange to put them back in separate boxes. May this be the beginning of a new and rich conversation!’
Philip Ball, Science Writer
‘Where do creative ideas come from? There is an answer, and it is the same for ideas in art as it is for ideas in science. There is a hidden wellspring inside the human mind from which they arise continuously. Tom McLeish provides meticulous evidence by interrogating the greatest minds. The result is a brilliant kaleidoscopic view of the history of imagination.’
Uta Frith FBA FRS, UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
‘Within the short compass of this subtle and elegant exposition, McLeish tackles one of the most disabling narratives of our time. Creativity is neither a luxury nor a disqualification in a world whose survival requires all our imaginative resources, and it infuses the arts and sciences in uncannily similar ways. The author has also created a rare and beautiful thing: few could embrace such a range of artistic and scientific endeavour with such an uplift.’
Marilyn Strathern DBE, Professor of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University
‘Reading this book is like eavesdropping on a series of intimate and detailed conversations among a set of accomplished scientists and artists on the subject of imagination, play and creativity, conversations in which McLeish himself participates. What McLeish’s book reveals is the astounding fact that these conversations are seamless, involving moments of transformation and insight that are not only familiar but frequent.’
Robert Crease, Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Stony Brook University
‘An interdisciplinary tour-de-force of astonishing clarity and depth, this book blows apart the “Two Cultures” argument for the rigid standoff between the sciences and the rest of the arts and humanities. McLeish is a
21st century Renaissance man, and his words are just the tonic for anyone who loudly doubts that science involves creativity—as well as for those who quietly know from lived experience that it certainly does.’
Jennifer Rohn, Principle Research Associate at University College London and author of Cat Zero
‘Many things have been said and written about the connections between maths and music but I have never encountered anything remotely as deep as this. McLeish exhibits mind-boggling inter-disciplinarity with depth as well as breadth, and his prose is as rich in poetry and music as the subject of the book.’
Eugenia Cheng, Scientist in Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
‘The Poetry and Music of Science will be recognized for years to come as a triumph that bridged the sciences and the humanities in an effort to call out the creativity and imagination that feeds them both. This book on creativity is creatively written and a pleasure to read.’
Elaine Howard Ecklund, author of Science vs. Religion
‘Anyone who believes that imagination, inspiration and creativity are the preserve of the arts should read this beautifully crafted ode to the enterprise of scientific discovery.’
Jim Al-Khalili OBE FRS, Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Surrey
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Tom McLeish 2019
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2019
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018959076
ISBN 978–0–19–879799–9
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
To Juanita Kalerghi Rothman, who exemplified how loving and thinking of science, writing, music and art bring them together in the human soul.
Preface
This all began on a school visit—I believe in the North Yorkshire town of Harrogate. I was a visiting university speaker to a group of bright high-school pupils in support of their ‘General Studies’ activity. I can’t be sure now of the topic—it might have been the history of science, or the science of plastics, or even the fascinating story of religion and science—but the message for me came during the discussion. The UK school system, as many readers will know, is uniquely specialized after the age of 16, by any international comparison. This meant that some of the 17 and 18 yearolds in the group were no longer studying any science or mathematics topics at all. From the level of their discussion many of them were clearly extremely bright and could have pursued any subject they had wished, so I asked them why they had not chosen to continue with any further studies in science. ‘Because I saw no room for any imagination, or my personal creativity, in science’, was the common response. I still remember feeling pain, and knew then that something had gone very awry in the way we talk about science in education and in the media. My own experience as a practicing scientist had been completely different. The school I attended a generation before had unusually allowed me to continue studies in French, alongside sciences and mathematics, before going to university, and there I had been helped to see that science cannot begin without the first creative step. I began to perceive that these two fortunate experiences were not unrelated. Scientists had failed somehow to communicate the creative core of science to the young people I was with, and clearly to many others besides.
The later privilege of working as a University Pro-ViceChancellor for Research (the post would be called Vice-President for Research in the USA) at Durham University gave me a wonderful daily insight into the thinking of imaginative academic
colleagues from the humanities and social scientists, as well as of the university’s great scientists. I had, of course, read C. P. Snow’s Two Cultures , and recognized the failed intercultural communication that concerned him, but became increasingly convinced that our disciplines share far more than we recognize. Our schools and universities are not in general structured in support of interdisciplinary conversation, but whenever we created space to talk, some precious spark seemed to be struck. Some of those sparks took hold and became serious projects that are still growing.
The first thanks therefore go to the institutions and individuals at Durham who gave their time, energies, and encouragement to an interdisciplinary vision. Professor Veronica Strang, Executive Director of Durham’s Institute for Advanced Studies is an interdisciplinary inspiration, and kindly hosted the introductory seminar that started the project that became this book. Prof. Giles Gasper is the visionary leader of the extraordinary Ordered Universe collaboration which brings the complementary perspectives of medieval scholars and scientists together to study the science of the thirteenth century. This project shows in a fascinating way that science possesses a much longer and deeper story that is usually told. It also illustrates in a tangible way that scientists and humanities scholars have much in common, while introducing me to the extraordinary thirteenth-century polymath Robert Grosseteste, who will also assist us at several points in this book. David Wilkinson, Principal of St. John’s College Durham, has my eternal gratitude for his intellectual, faithful, and personal encouragement to frame theology and science in fresh ways. I am greatly indebted to Patricia Waugh for pointing me to the entanglements of science and the writing of novels, to Julian Horton for a shared love of Schumann and for his expert analysis of the Konzertstück, to Martin Cann for a long and patient collaboration between biology and physics.
An invitation from the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (Indiana) as Visiting Fellow 2017–8 was instrumental, especially
in the research for Chapter 4, but also in support of the book at a whole. NDIAS Director Brad Gregory inspired me with his vision for the ‘unity of knowledge’, and I am deeply grateful for the discussions, readings, and comments of other NDIAS fellows and ND academic staff, especially Laura Dassow-Walls, Celia DeaneDrummond, Steve Fallon, Margot Fassler, Patrick Griffin, Chris Kolda, David Bentley Hart, Elaine Stratton Hild, Henricke Lange, Bernie McGinn, Richard Taylor, Emily Dumler Winckler, Xinyu Dong, and my two wonderful undergraduate research assistants Sofia Carozza and Jeremy Cappello Lee. Without the creative support of Don Stelluto and Carolyn Sherman, none of that would have happened.
The third important setting for this book is my new academic home of the University of York. The imaginative decision to create an interdisciplinary Chair of Natural Philosophy, so regenerating a tradition dormant in England for about two centuries, has already proved a joy to work in. In a short time new colleagues have already nourished the content of this book, including and especially Mary Garrison, Keith Allen, Kevin Killeen, Jeanne Nuechterlein, and Elizabeth Tyler.
Listening to artists, art curators, musicians, scientists, and educationalists talk about their work candidly and honestly has been an immense privilege and an essential source of wisdom. Thanks go especially to the Ordered Universe project’s artists in residence and collaboration Alexandra Carr, Colin Rennie and Cate Watkinson, and to Vanessa Chamberlin, Janet Graham, Jeremy Mayall, Graeme Willson, Berry Billingsley, Michael Reiss, Stephen Blundell, Carl Gombrich, Julie Kornfield, Katie Lewis, Stephen Blundell, Ard Louis, Wilson Poon, Scott Milner, Christopher Southgate and Hannah Smithson. I am grateful to Jill Cook of the British Museum for the inspiration of her Living with the Gods exhibition, and to Jennifer Thompson of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for access to and discussion of Monet’s Pines at Sunset. Of great value was the Imagination Institute workshop held in Kings College, Cambridge in 2016. For this thanks are due to Robert Sternberg,
James Kaufman, Martin Rees, Ashley Zauderer, Michael Berry, Michael Cates, Melissa Franklin, Philip Ball, Naomi Leonard, Jon Keating, John Pendry and Herbert Huppert.
I am very grateful to friends and colleagues who have gone the extra mile by reading and commenting on drafts, often suggesting vital new discussions and sources that I would otherwise have missed, but at the same time kindly picking up a myriad of small errors. Any that remain sit very firmly at my door. Especial thanks go to Carl Gombrich, Mary Garrison, Michael Reiss, Andrew Steane, and Adrian Sutton for comprehensive overhauls, and to Mark Miller, Julie McLeish, Marilyn Strathern, Victoria Lorrimar, and Iain McGilchrist for particular comments. Thanks go to Rosie McLeish for very efficient typesetting of the musical quotations in Chapter 5. Those on this list who share my surname have also supported the necessary labours with their patience and love more than they know. Juanita Kalerghi Rothman has been a lifelong inspiration to connect the scientific and the artistic, to find aesthetics in engineering and contemplation in creativity of all kinds. To her this book is gratefully dedicated.
The editorial team at OUP, especially Ania Wronski and Sonke Adlung, are a perpetual joy to work with, and are most certainly due thanks for their encouragement but especially their patience. It was fun.
Tom McLeish York, Feast of St. Barnabas, the Son of Encouragement, 2018
Colour Plate A. Experiments (A—microscopy and B—a plot of velocity contours and vorticity strength in colour scale) and models (C—a mesoscopic model and D—a continuum theory) of a turbulent quasi-2D flow of dense swimming bacteria (B. subtilis). Reproduced with permission from Wensink, H. H. et al. (2012), ‘Mesoscale turbulence in living fluids’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109, 14308–14313
Colour Plate B. Example of the Ashihda and Kitaoka’s ‘Rotating Snake Illusion’. Letting one’s eyes wander over the image creates for most viewers an illusion of rotational motion in the circles. Reproduced with kind permission of Akiyoshi Kitaoka
(a) (b)
Colour Plate C. (A) ‘Adoration of the Magi’, 1303–05 (fresco), Giotto di Bondone (c. 1266–1337)/Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel, Padua, Italy/De Agostini Picture Library/A. Dagli Orti/Bridgeman Images. (B) ‘Last Judgement’, 1303–05 (fresco), Giotto di Bondone (c. 1266–1337)/Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel, Padua, Italy/Mondadori Portfolio/Archivio Antonio Quattrone/Bridgeman Images
Colour Plate D. ‘L’image Du Monde’ by Gossuin de Metz, With permission, Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Colour Plate E. Claude Monet; ‘Under the Pine Trees at the End of Day’ (1888), Philadelphia Museum of Art, 125th Anniversary Acquisition. Gift of F. Otto Haas and partial gift of the reserved life interest of Carole Haas Gravagno, 1993-151-1 with permission of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Colour Plate F. Graeme Willson (1998); ‘Quartet’, Private Collection, with permission
Colour Plate G. ‘Robert Boyle’ (1627–91), by German painter Johann Kerseboom (d. 1708), with permission of The Royal Society
Colour Plate H. Pablo Picasso (1937); ‘Guernica’ with permission, Reina Sofía Museum Collection, Madrid
Colour Plate I.
with permission of the Museum of Ulm
The ivory ‘Lion Man’, Schwabia, c. 40 000 bce,
Colour Plate J. (a) Theodoric’s diagram of the formation of the rainbow through double-refraction and reflection of sunlight in raindrops towards an observer; MS Basel F. IV. 30, ff. 33v-34r. (b) a modern illustration of the dispersion in angles of refracted and reflected light within a raindrop. (c) A primary and secondary rainbow https://www.pinterest.com.au/ pin/232287293250306356/?autologin=true. (d) and (e) Art installation by Colin Rennie, Sunderland Art Museum ‘Illuminating Colour’. (b) and (d) reproduced with permission of Prof. Hannah Smithson
(b)
