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The Poetry and Music of Science examines aspects of science and art that bear close comparison - for example the art of the novel and the art of scientific experimentation. The book eavesdrops on conversations between scientists on how new theories arise, and listens to artists' and composers' witness of their own creative processes.
List of contents
- Introduction: Creativity and Constraint
- 1: Creative Inspiration in Science
- 2: Seeing the Unseen: Visual Imagination, and the Unconscious
- 3: Experimental Science and the Art of the Novel
- 4: Music and Mathematics: Creating the Sublime
- 5: Emotion and Reason in Scientific Creation
- 6: The End of Creation
- Introduction: Creativity and Constraint
- 1: Creative Inspiration in Science
- 2: Seeing the Unseen: Visual Imagination, and the Unconscious
- 3: Experimental Science and the Art of the Novel
- 4: Music and Mathematics: Creating the Sublime
- 5: Emotion and Reason in Scientific Creation
- 6: The End of Creation
- Introduction: Creativity and Constraint
- 1: Creative Inspiration in Science
- 2: Seeing the Unseen: Visual Imagination, and the Unconscious
- 3: Experimental Science and the Art of the Novel
- 4: Music and Mathematics: Creating the Sublime
- 5: Emotion and Reason in Scientific Creation
- 6: The End of Creation
About the author
Tom McLeish, Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of York, UK
Tom McLeish FRS is Professor of Natural Philosophy at York University, where he works with chemists, engineers and biologists in universities and industry to connect material properties with their molecular structure. He also works on connections between science and policy, history (e.g. interdisciplinary re-examinations of medieval scientific treatises) and the humanities, resulting in the recent books Faith and Wisdom in Science (OUP 2014). He was Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at Durham University (2008-2014) and is Chair of the Royal Society's Education Committee. He has been a Reader in the Anglican Church since 1993.
Summary
The Poetry and Music of Science examines aspects of science and art that bear close comparison - for example the art of the novel and the art of scientific experimentation. The book eavesdrops on conversations between scientists on how new theories arise, and listens to artists' and composers' witness of their own creative processes.
Additional text
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.
