The artist and the scientist have a common aim: to give shape
to the world around them. They do this by searching for patterns
- patterns that link the previously unconnected. Such patterns
can be made evident in paint, words, numbers, or with the aid
of the symbols of mathematics. But a brush-stroke or word is also
a symbol.
Artist and scientist are impelled by the same fundamental human
impulse: the wish to live, and hence to experience. They experience
by making contact; by embracing the world. But whether physically
or intellectually, one can only embrace what has shape. That is
why the giving of shape is central to existence. We call it "discovery".
Though discovery can become a high art, it is clearly not the
exclusive provenance of the artist or the scientist. It is a general
pursuit that begins with the onset of consciousness, ending only
with death.
The demands made on the beginning discoverer, the infant, are
so remarkable that one could argue for distribution of Nobel prizes
at birth. The infant is required to invent a system of physics
embodying such profound concepts as number, form, colour, taste,
size and permanence. It does so through the same procedure as
its adult counterpart, namely through play tempered by logic.
The requirements for play and logic are different. Each must be
given its due. Happily the human mechanism is a blend of the controlled
and the haphazard that opens the way to discovery.
Implicit in these statements is the claim that science is one
of the arts. More precisely it is implied here that the act of
discovery is an act of creation. The scientist, calculator in
hand, is seen to be painting the natural world as surely, and
as unsurely, as the painter, brush in hand.
Relativity was not there lying in wait for its discoverer any
more or less than Guernica was there waiting for its creator.
Both scientist and artist made a culturally-conditioned commitment
to a world-view; relativity and Guernica were the outcome.
It was in the tests that they applied to their views that scientist
and artist to some extent differed.
Both scientist and artist made a valid statement of truth for
their time. Both made their assertions on the basis of such evidence
as was available to them. These assertions, since they embodied
elements of the truth, were timeless, but, since they were less
than the whole truth, were of their time. We conclude that both
individuals, our prototypical scientist and artist, drew on the
culture of the age and contributed to it. Without the other neither
could have been what they were, nor done what they did.
The resulting essay has been translated into Italian and published in the book
Scienza e società. Dieci Nobel per il futuro. (Marsilio, Venezia 1995).
