Nobel winner discussed science, poetry

Chemist and poet Roald Hoffmann discussed the relationship between the arts and sciences at his lecture on Friday.

The lecture, “One Culture or Commonalities and Differences Between the Arts and the Sciences,” held a packed audience in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of Hodges Library.

He focused on three fields: science, poetry and the visual arts. Hoffmann presented case studies, or “stories,” as he called them, in these three fields to show what is similar and what is different between the arts and sciences.

Hoffmann discussed several poems, including Rainer Maria Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” C.P. Cavafy’s “Ithaca” and A.R. Ammons’ “The Spiral Rag,” and their poetic techniques. Hoffmann expressed his admiration for Ammons, who was also a scientist and a poet like Hoffmann.

“(His poem) makes a connection to black holes (in a way) that I can understand it,” Hoffmann said.

His discussion on visual arts focused on portraits and how painters emphasize different aspects of a person throughout history, such as a shift from a more realistic portrayal of faces to a focus on facial expression and emotion.

“A portrait is a very complicated transaction between three people — the subject, the painter and the thousands of viewers.”

Hoffmann showed Diego Veláz-quez’s “The Maids of Honour” and said it was the greatest representation ever painted. The work portrays Velázquez painting the princess Margarita, daughter of the King and Queen of Spain, who comes into the room to view the painting’s progress. He then showed images of other painters, including Picasso, who painted work based on Velázquez.

Hoffmann explained how art and science share several similarities. Both are acts of creation, involve craftsmanship, use economy of statement, have a desire to communicate, are cross-cultural, are selfish and altruistic, and share elements of a common aesthetic, he said.

He said the fields of art and science create objects, such as scientific papers or paintings, and require craftsmanship to become quality works. These works use certain methods to express a particular idea in the most concise and efficient way possible. Hoffmann said both artistic and scientific movements are global and cross-cultural. Art and science share the same ideas about beauty, Hoffmann said, because a symmetrical molecule is considered beautiful, just as an architectural monument, like the Taj Mahal. He said scientists and artists are selfish, in terms of wanting to publish their work and gain an audience, and are altruistic, by communicating new ideas and theories through publishing.

“No one writes poetry to sit in a drawer (and not be seen),” he said.

The differences between the arts and sciences are their relationships with ambiguity, solutions and resolutions, and universal experiences, said Hoffmann.

Science is more concrete, while poetry is more ambiguous, using words that have multiple meanings, which is conducive to creativity, he said.

Hoffmann explained that both science and art attempt to find solutions to problems, but art allows for more interpretations.

“Millions of poems (have been written) on the end of love — (but) the problem is not solved. If it is a good poem, it has an equal and valid resolution,” he said.

While science is about universals, said Hoffmann, a poem gets to a common experience through a particular experience. This is similar to chemistry, which focuses on particular molecules, he said.

“Two points he made were very thought provoking: about the distinction we have in attitude toward what is natural versus what is artificial, and any piece of creative activity must be accompanied by the proper sense of responsibility (and) ethical judgment,” Yuki Yamada, senior in biochemistry and molecular biology, said.

Yamada admitted that Hoffman’s lecture related to almost every member of the audience.

“Hoffman had the right kind of educated and witty humor appropriate to his audience, something we might not expect in a recipient of the Nobel prize in Chemistry — the poet, the novelist, the artist, the scientist, no matter what our occupations and interests are, we can all enjoy some comedic relief to our serious lives,” Yamada said.