2001 Sigma Xi Forum Online Proceedings

Science, the Arts and the Humanities: Connections and Collisions

November 8-9, 2001
Sheraton Capital Center
Raleigh, North Carolina

The following sampling of presentations and images from the 2001 Sigma Xi Forum is a work in progress. We urge you to revisit this site for periodic updates.

The 2001 Sigma Xi Forum was made possible thanks to support from the American Chemical Society Matching Gift Fund, GlaxoSmithKline, Duke University, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, North Carolina Section of the American Chemical Society, North Carolina State University Chapter of Sigma Xi and The Phi Beta Kappa Society.

Plenary Sessions

A New Trivium and Quadrivium
George Bugliarello, Polytechnic University
There can be little question that there are conflicts today between the views that the humanities hold of science and engineering and that science and engineering hold of the humanities. But there are also some powerful confluences, such as that of art and engineering in architecture. The conflicts are dangerous, as they weaken the very core of our culture. The cause of many of them goes back to the medieval trivium and quadrivium and its continuing impact on our education. For the sake of our future, we need a new foundation, a new trivium and quadrivium, common to all disciplines and propaedeutic to all specialized disciplines.

Intersections in Research between the Arts and Sciences
Moderator: Susan Howard, Phi Beta Kappa
Panelists: Felice Frankel, MIT; Minor Myers, Illinois Wesleyan; George Saliba, Columbia University; Richard Taylor, University of Oregon
Bursting with fresh and unexpected insights into the linkages between science, the arts and the humanities, this distinguished and diverse panel included a world-renowned science photographer whose work has become the gold standard for the accurate and yet artistic interpretations of images from nature, an historian who has focused his research on the multidisciplinary and remarkably talented individuals who developed the modern approach to scientific investigation, an expert in Arab science who draws lessons about the understanding of nature from the non-Western practice of scientific investigation, and a physicist who has trained a tool from mathematics on the chaotic and difficult to understand works of Jackson Pollock, uncovering, as a result, a deeper understanding of the connections between the artist's interpretation of modern society and the technical work of his contemporaries in the sciences.

The Art and Humanity of Engineering
Henry Petroski, Duke University
Engineering at its best always balances technical and economic considerations with those of creativity and human values. Great works of engineering are also great works of art and expressions of our humanity. Among the celebrated engineering achievements discussed in this illustrated talk were the Brooklyn Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Conservation Center: Where Art Meets Science
Terry T. Schaeffer, Conservation Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Successful conservation treatments of art objects rely on scientific knowledge. Art conservators combine their skills in studio art with their knowledge of art history and a technical understanding of the working and aging properties of the substances they use. This latter information is gained not only from practical experience, but also from chemical and physical analysis. Conservation scientists and conservators use analytical procedures to identify artists' materials and techniques, and deterioration processes that occur in works of art. They test the suitability of new materials for conservation in carefully designed experiments, usually adapting classic and modern technologies to their needs. These interdisciplinary activities were illustrated with examples from the Conservation Center at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Bringing the Methods of the Hard Sciences to the Humanities
Wilfred Niels Arnold, University of Kansas Medical Center
Contemplations on the lives of historic figures are among the most stimulating of interdisciplinary endeavors, but such exercises will not be productive in the long run if built upon rampant speculation and absence of verifiable data. It behooves us to use the same habits of mind and process associated with the so-called hard sciences in order to shed meaningful light on topics of human, social, and cultural concern. Examples of compounded errors associated with Vincent van Gogh were presented. The speaker also illustrated the principle of organized skepticism, and a positive outcome, by discussing an aspect of the illness of the English monarch King George III (1738-1820) reflected on paper, stage and screen.

Creative Co-Dependents: Science, the Arts, and the Humanities
Catharine R. Stimpson, New York University
The theory that science and the humanities are two cultures that can barely mumble to each other still has a lot of popular currency. A pity, because science and the humanities, especially when joined by the arts, are co-dependents in creating contemporary society and culture.

The Stimulus and Value of Combining Art and Science for Humanist Benefit
Charles Pell, Nekton Research; Steve Wainwright, Duke University and Seesaw Studio
Gross modeling is presumably biased towards robust, evolutionarily important phenomena. Tangible models, like multi-layered works of art, can surprise when they are encountered: material models, subject to physical laws, can reveal unanticipated properties and other effects and spawn new approaches. The art then drives the science: if you build models, the hypotheses will come. In part one of the discussion, Chuck Pell provided examples of how models, physical abstractions of organisms, are valuable to the extent that they are "simple" and display behaviors of interest. In part two, Steve Wainwright focused on design as art for a purpose. Artists start with a blank canvas and then derive their inspiration from the muse, while scientists start with the question "What is the design?" Examples were shown/displayed of art in science and science in art. Some ideas concerning the connections between this topic and education (teaching and learning) were also discussed.

Science, the Arts and the Humanities: Making the Public Case
Moderators: George Bugliarello, Polytechnic University; Catharine R. Stimpson, New York University
Panelists: Robert Connor, National Humanities Center; Jack Gibbons, Resource Strategies; Gail M. Leftwich, Federation of State Humanities Councils
One of the features of contemporary society is the increasing number of scientific issues of public significance that require discussion of human values. Policy debates about such issues as gene therapy, bioengineered food, global warming, biomedical research, evolution and the "ownership" of scientific knowledge quickly reveal the inextricable intertwining of science and human experience—the stuff of humanities. Both cultures have much to gain from working together to foster renewed public interest in the work that scientists do, the human implications of that work, and a greater understanding of the complex relationship between science, culture, government and the marketplace.

John P. McGovern Science and Society Lecture
One Culture: The Commonalities And Differences Between The Arts and The Sciences
Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University
The postulate of a rift between scientists and technologists on one hand, and humanists and artists on the other, was criticized on several grounds. Using case studies from chemistry, poetry, painting and ceramics a case was made for an underlying unity of science and the arts. The common elements of these human activities are creation with craftsmanship, concisely communicated, in a cross-cultural and altruistic way, with aesthetics figuring importantly in a search for understanding of the universe around and within us. But there be differences…

Special Events

The Music of Earthquakes: Waveforms of Sound and Seismology
Video
Andrew J. Michael, Stephanie Ross, U.S. Geological Survey; David Schaff, Columbia University
Musicians create waves while seismologists analyze them, so these seemingly different activities are closely joined by the waves themselves. With a mix of performance and lecture, acoustic instruments and computer generated sounds, we explore the similarities between music and science and find new ways to learn about the earth, earthquakes, musical instruments and music. The talk will culminate by bringing music and seismology together with "Earthquake Quartet #1 for trombone, cello, voice, and earthquakes."

Violinmaking: Is It Art or Is It Science?
Video Note: This is a RealPlayer file. If you do not have RealPlayer, you can download a free copy at www.real.com.
Joseph Nagyvary, Texas A & M University; Shunsuke Sato, violinist; Randall L. Love, Duke University, pianist
A perusal of 200 years of reductionistic research of the violin reveals very little of practical significance for the violinmaker. A thorough scientific study of the violin is difficult to conduct because of the very large number of variables and outcomes. For this reason, a holistic approach based on intuition may be more expedient if the goal is to reach the excellence of a Stradivarius violin. Nagyvary's intuition as a biochemist led him to the assumption that the uniqueness of the Cremona violins is defined mainly by their chemical compositions and material microstructure, which are responsible for the brilliance of the sound. He can now reproduce this unique feature of all Cremona violins by applying the proper chemicals to new violins. In his interpretation of past experiences, the creation of a great violin requires the collaboration of a scientist and an artist/craftsman.

This session was co-sponsored by the North Carolina Section of the American Chemical Society as part of National Chemistry Week.

Oxygen
Video
A play by Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann
Performed by the San Diego Repertory Theatre

Introduction and Post-Performance Discussion, Roald Hoffmann, Cornell University

The performance of Oxygen was co-sponsored by the North Carolina Section of the American Chemical Society as part of National Chemistry Week.

What is discovery? Why is it important to be first? These questions trouble the characters in Oxygen. The action alternates between 1777 and 2001, the Centenary of the Nobel Prize, when the Nobel Foundation decides to inaugurate the "retro-Nobel" Award for discoveries that preceded the establishment of the Prize in 1901. The Foundation thinks this will be easy. In the good old days, wasn't science done for science's sake? Wasn't discovery simple, pure and unalloyed by controversy, priority claims and hype? The ethical issues around priority and discovery at the heart of this play are as timely today as they were in 1777. As are the ironies of revolutions: Lavoisier, the chemical revolutionary, is a political conservative, who loses his life in the Jacobin terror. Priestley, the political radical, is a chemical conservative. And Scheele just wants to run his pharmacy. He, the first man on earth to make oxygen, got least credit for it. Will that situation be repaired 230 years after his discovery?

--From Oxygen, Djerassi & Hoffmann, Wiley-VCH, 2001