ART in SCIENCE

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Some scientists have an interest in ART and the use of ART in conveying scientific ideas that are otherwise difficult to express in other ways . This thread is started to act as a vehicle for such participation.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments by another Scientific Artist ( anonymous )

 

"for what it's worth, I had the same reaction to your image being reversed as I did to mine- and I think this is a compliment."

Edited March 29, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[swansont]

Some scientists have an interest in ART

 

Scientists are human.

 

 

and the use of ART in conveying scientific ideas that are otherwise difficult to express in other ways .

Would that be science communication, i.e. with a non-science audience? Or do you have some examples of scientists using art* to communicate with other scientists?

 

*in a non-trivial fashion. Pictures or technical drawings are not really art, as such.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

 

 

Scientists are human.

 

 

 

Would that be science communication, i.e. with a non-science audience? Or do you have some examples of scientists using art* to communicate with other scientists?

 

*in a non-trivial fashion. Pictures or technical drawings are not really art, as such.

 

Both and All.

 

I have a few members on the forum here, who are already communicating with me via PM.'s about Art in Science ,

which I/we believe would interest others in open forum.

 

The above example of my attempts to communicate ideas involved with the subject of Complexity where Symmetry breaking in principle takes a bit of explaining without pictures. Some of the original writers on Chaos and Complexity used many illustrations to get Ideas of [MandleBrote sets, Bifurcation, Strange attractors etc] , across

 

The other example is more simple being an image of star formation in a dust cloud , which is more an appreciation rather than an explanation.

 

mike

Edited March 29, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[swansont]

Is a Mandelbrot set art?

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Is a Mandelbrot set art?

Perhaps that is a bad example as its computer /imaginary number generated. However I am sure a few people have hung them on their wall as some images are really beautiful .

 

Here are some quick , Non colourful illustrations From Brian Green re string theory . 'Elegant Universe' book

 

and

From Max Tegmark our 'Mathematical Universe' book

 

both scientists in their own right illustrating their difficult ideas in picture ( all be it black and White )

 

Mike

Edited March 29, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

Art is as art does.

 

art (ärt)

n.

1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.

2.

a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.

b. The study of these activities.

c. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/art

 

Mathematics is the Queen of the Sciences. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss

 

Wherever there is number, there is beauty. ~ Proclus

 

It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul. ~ Sophie Kowalevski

 

 

[swansont]

 

both scientists in their own right illustrating their difficult ideas in picture ( all be it black and White )

 

 

As per my previous post, my position is that illustrations are not necessarily art.

[Acme]

As per my previous post, my position is that illustrations are not necessarily art.

However, illustrations/compositions/depictions are not necessarily not art as you seem to imply. By the same token, if Mike means to imply every illustration/composition/depiction is necessarily art, then I disagree with that too. Nonetheless, if either an illustrator/composer/depicter or a viewer sees/hears art, then art it be's.

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye. ~ Miss Piggy

source: http://www.searchquotes.com/quotes/author/Miss_Piggy/

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

 

As per my previous post, my position is that illustrations are not necessarily art.

 

I do understand what you are trying to say , but, its rather I believe to be semantics ! { Arguing over words }

ART is ART even if its a sheep pickled in formaldehyde . [ does absolutely nothing for me, but was in the Art of .Damien Hirst .TATE .....gallery London .

 

In past times men and women who scoured the world to explore new passages from lake victoria to the sea , down the Congo River painted illustrations which today would be considered works of Art.

 

Today a computer operator could have the heart of 'Zero appreciation of Art' , yet pull and paste a few pre- prepared shapes and produce what could be considered a work of Art. The divisions between illustration and Art are very very blurred.

 

As Acme says I think we need to think in this context on this forum Art and the Beauty of that Art is in the eye of the beholder. But Art as an informer is better understood .

 

In addition to this We have a particular pressure on us as 'Scientists' ( if I am allowed to call myself one, as I do indeed consider myself one ) . That is , we , above all else need to communicate our understanding of what we do 'know', to the public arena. As artists, ( I only consider myself a recent participant in this arena as a scientist-painter in retirement, My skills through life previously were only through drawing which was my life skills as a son of an architect and a design engineer by profession and latterly teacher of physics, communicating to young minds the wonders of science. .

 

Painting has been a recent addition. However I would like to think I have appreciated some Art throughout my life, as most people have.It is now that I personally need to use what artistic skills I do have , in communicating any aspects of science that I believe, I could better communicate, using 'ART'.in its wider meaning.

 

Mike

Edited March 29, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

I do understand what you are trying to say , but, its rather I believe to be semantics ! { Arguing over words } ART is ART even if its a sheep pickled in formaldehyde . [ does absolutely nothing for me, but was in the .............gallery London .

 

In snip...

mike

Keep in mind that when it comes to discussing things, words is all we has. Trying to trivialize this fact by referring to semantics is a fool's folly. Yes a thing may be both scientific and artistic; no, not all things are both scientific and artistic.

 

Mr. Tea asked, "Or do you have some examples of scientists using art* to communicate with other scientists? *in a non-trivial fashion.". Yes says Acme; I do.

 

 

source: Vitruvian Man @ Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man

Edited March 29, 2014 by Acme

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

Keep in mind that when it comes to discussing things, words is all we has. Trying to trivialize this fact by referring to semantics is a fool's folly. Yes a thing may be both scientific and artistic; no, not all things are both scientific and artistic.

 

Mr. Tea asked, "Or do you have some examples of scientists using art* to communicate with other scientists? *in a non-trivial fashion.". Yes says Acme; I do.

 

Brilliant, ! A Leonardo da Vinci special, used by Nasa to allow communication with future 'possible' alien visitors to our environs.

And of course Da Vinci was himself both scientist and artist. link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

 

Of course I have to agree 'Words are absolutely essential ' I am an advocate of a " Lingual Theory of Everything " . You cant get much more important and meaningful than 'everything' I have to believe in words or I am a false to my thoughts and ideas

 

Mike

Edited March 29, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

Brilliant, A Leanardo De Vinchi special, used by Nasa to allow communication with future 'possible' alien visitors to our environs.

And of course Da Vinchi was himself both scientist and artist.

 

Of course I have to agree 'Words are absolutely essential ' I am an advocate of a " Lingual Theory of Everything " . You cant get much more important and meaningful than 'everything'

 

Mike

You're welcome. However, do not put words in my mouth. While I did say/write "...when it comes to discussing things, words is all we has.", that is not the same as "'Words are absolutely essential ' [to everything]". If nothing else, because of Gödel's proof; i.e. if a formal axiomatic system is internally consistent it must be incomplete and if it is complete it must be internally inconsistent.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

You're welcome. However, do not put words in my mouth. While I did say/write "...when it comes to discussing things, words is all we has.", that is not the same as "'Words are absolutely essential ' [to everything]". If nothing else, because of Gödel's proof; i.e. if a formal axiomatic system is internally consistent it must be incomplete and if it is complete it must be internally inconsistent.

 

That sounds like a conversation between Godel and Einstein , to me . I better run for cover,

 

I am trying to get my head round Einstein and his early Axioms, it is getting me into bother ! with my concepts of position as inspired by starting to read Einsteins Book 'Special and General Relativity ' .

 

 

mike

Edited March 29, 2014 by Mike Smith Cosmos

[Acme]

That sounds like a conversation between Godel and Einstein , to me . I better run for cover,

 

I am trying to get my head round Einstein and his early Axioms, it is getting me into bother ! with concepts of position.

mike

Ahh well, you may run but you can't hide from Gödel's hammer. As to Einstein und Gödel:

... Einstein once remarked to Oskar Morgenstern, one of the cofounders of game theory, that he went to the Institute chiefly to walk home with Gödel. ("Um das Privileg zu haben, mit Gödel zu Fuss nach Hause gehen zu dürfen."

...

Gödel's solution to the field equation vindicated the deepest insight of Einstein's theory, namely that time is relative. But Einstein's theory of relativity suggests only that time does not exist in the conventional sense, not that time exists in no sense whatsoever. Einstein's claim is more subtle. He suggests that change is an illusion. Things do not become, they have not been, and they will not be: They simply are. Time is like space; it is precisely like space. In traveling to Singapore, I do not bring Singapore into existence. I reach Singapore, but the city has been there all along. So, too, I reach events in the future by displacing myself in time. I do not bring them into being. And if nothing is brought into being, there is no change. ...

*source: http://discovermagazine.com/2002/mar/featgodel

 

As to positioning your head, what you need is Escher's box for holding optical illusions.

 

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belvedere_(M._C._Escher)

Edited March 29, 2014 by Acme

[arc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Harder

 

For me this is the artist. We all without a doubt have seen his work as children in books.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=heinrich+Harder&espv=210&es_sm=93&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=2Vk3U5DMJcLcyQHVs4H4Cw&ved=0CDQQsAQ&biw=1517&bih=714&dpr=0.9

 

 

I'm fortunate to own a small landscape by him. Sadly though no Cambrian sea life, dinosaurs or even more recent animals, just flora and terra. Oh well, still treasure it.

Edited March 30, 2014 by arc

[swansont]

The issue for me is that art is subjective; the artist is trying to convey some concept, and the viewer is free to interpret it. That's not the case in science. What I mean by F=ma had better be what everyone else means by F=ma. Any ambiguity is reconciled by comparing to experiment. There is no room for personal interpretation.

[Acme]

The issue for me is that art is subjective; the artist is trying to convey some concept, and the viewer is free to interpret it. That's not the case in science. What I mean by F=ma had better be what everyone else means by F=ma. Any ambiguity is reconciled by comparing to experiment. There is no room for personal interpretation.

Yes; art is subjective. So while you may not consider an unambiguously rigorously rendered drawing -such as the Mandelbrot set or piece thereof- as art, that does not preclude the rest of us from labeling it so. What concept would Mandelbrot have conveyed by the set's equation alone? How many folks would be familiar with the set or 'know' what it means without the 'subjective' illustrations of it? Little I wager.

[ajb]

I don't know of any good examples where a scientist has really used art to present some idea. Technical drawing, sketches and various graphics yes, and these maybe considered art by some. There are also many movies of computer simulations of many phenomena. All may have some artistic value, I don't know.

 

The only other thing that I immediately think of is "artists impressions" often used in space science and astronomy. But these are usually not trying to get scientific detail correct just give some graphical impression of something to inspire the mind of the general public.

 

I will just add that my quick excursions into mathematical art are for the sake of art, not really the mathematics. By this I mean that the various fractal and fractal-like images my wife and I have produced were just to "look good" and that I do not claim these images have any real scientific value. For example, some of the parameters were chosen for ascetics and not because they are relevant to any specific system mathematical or physical.

Edited March 30, 2014 by ajb

[michel123456]

An image is worth a thousand words and a thousand five hundred years.

That's what Leonardo achieved when representing something described with words by someone else 1500 years before him.

The drawing is dated circa 1490 while Vitruvius description is circa 15 B.C.

 

The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise De Architectura. Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture. Vitruvius determined that the ideal body should be eight heads high. Leonardo's drawing is traditionally named in honor of the architect.

 

So, the use of images can boost a scientific idea, be it right or wrong.

 

It could be interesting to make a research on how scientific data has been represented in imagery through centuries. Reminding me ancient geographic maps with illustrations and planispheres.

Aso, an influence of art is that scientific laws are supposed to be "beautiful".

A concept that made irrational numbers not so acceptable in the beginning. A same concept that imposed circles instead of ellipses for planetary motion.

A same concept that says that life (ie ourselves) must be beautiful. That the entire universe must be beautiful (although what we observe are burning furnaces, freezing void and chaos). And so on.

 

And nobody dare to say the contrary.

---------------------

Also, the PhD couvre-chef is ART.

Edited March 30, 2014 by michel123456

[studiot]

 

swansont

the artist is trying to convey some concept,

 

ajb

I don't know of any good examples where a scientist has really used art to present some idea.

 

Well that's exactly it.

 

Artistic techniques (which produce Art) can be used, very effectively for communication of ideas.

 

An example of where you would not have swansont's cut and dried Newton's law would be found in my paper concerning cracks in concrete.

 

The presentation version of the paper contains several animations of crack patterns and their development in concrete.

These greatly aid communication to the subject matter.

 

Cracks vary, every crack pattern is different, but characteristics of similarity can be extracted, from which much useful information can deduced.

 

In case you are wondering; Cracks in concrete duh! So What?

Well unwanted cracking has cost hundreds of millions or more worldwide so the subject is big, big business, as well as interesting science.

[swansont]

 

 

An example of where you would not have swansont's cut and dried Newton's law would be found in my paper concerning cracks in concrete.

 

The presentation version of the paper contains several animations of crack patterns and their development in concrete.

These greatly aid communication to the subject matter.

 

 

Are you free to portray the cracks as you wish, depending on your mood or inspiration? Will it still convey the information properly if that happened?

 

My position is that these constraints are present in science and not present in art. That is not to say that science can't be beautiful, or that science can't be present in art or can't be presented in creative ways.

[michel123456]

The first painting in the O.P. post #1 represents a PhD from above.

[studiot]

 

Are you free to portray the cracks as you wish, depending on your mood or inspiration? Will it still convey the information properly if that happened?

 

About as free as you are to draw a moustache on the Mona Lisa.

 

I have seen some pretty ugly (query unartsome) items designed by engineers, along with some pretty impractical stuff designed by the artistic professions.

That is why the Royal fine Arts Commission is one party involved in the design of major bridges in the UK.

Often, however good engineering leads to attractive design for example the work of Maillart.

 

This is one of thequestions - like maths plus physics understanding - where disparate disciplines are inseparable in the best.

That is the real difference between Man and Machine - The ability to combine apparantly unrelated matters into a whole that is unachievable by other means.

[Acme]

snip...

This is one of the questions - like maths plus physics understanding - where disparate disciplines are inseparable in the best.

That is the real difference between Man and Machine - The ability to combine apparantly unrelated matters into a whole that is unachievable by other means.

Here here! I was watching a re-run of Star Trek the other night and came to the impression that going back and forth with Mike & Swan is like mediating between Spock & McCoy. Either on their own seem to miss the mark, but the join by third parties of their approaches takes the day. Nevertheless, they each remain mystified by the other and ever ready to rejoin the agon. It would be more vexing were they not such loveable characters.

 

Well, I think I ought to shut up & put up. I drew this by hand with a drafting machine, then scanned it and added some digital artifications. It is both pleasing to the eye as I intended it and rigorously mathematically unambiguous and informative as I intended it. Agon indeed!

 

[swansont]

 

About as free as you are to draw a moustache on the Mona Lisa.

 

I have seen some pretty ugly (query unartsome) items designed by engineers, along with some pretty impractical stuff designed by the artistic professions.

That is why the Royal fine Arts Commission is one party involved in the design of major bridges in the UK.

Often, however good engineering leads to attractive design for example the work of Maillart.

 

This is one of thequestions - like maths plus physics understanding - where disparate disciplines are inseparable in the best.

That is the real difference between Man and Machine - The ability to combine apparantly unrelated matters into a whole that is unachievable by other means.

 

Here's the thing: would the aesthetic addition to a bridge design be allowed to compromise the specs from the engineers?

Here here! I was watching a re-run of Star Trek the other night and came to the impression that going back and forth with Mike & Swan is like mediating between Spock & McCoy. Either on their own seem to miss the mark, but the join by third parties of their approaches takes the day. Nevertheless, they each remain mystified by the other and ever ready to rejoin the agon. It would be more vexing were they not such loveable characters.

 

Well, I think I ought to shut up & put up. I drew this by hand with a drafting machine, then scanned it and added some digital artifications. It is both pleasing to the eye as I intended it and rigorously mathematically unambiguous and informative as I intended it. Agon indeed!

 

 

 

What scientific concept is it meant to portray?