POETRY AND SCIENCE

The language of both science and poetry is a language under stress. Words are being made by their respective authors to describe things that often seem indescribable in words: equations, chemical and physical structures in the case of science, and an inner life of thoughts and emotions, among other things in the case of poetry.

Words don’t and cannot mean all that they stand for. Yet words are arguably the best means people have to describe experience. By being a natural language under tension, the language of science is inherently poetic. There is metaphor aplenty in science. Emotions emerge shaped as states of matter and, more interestingly, matter acts out what goes on in the soul. This is why one can say that science is poetic.

One thing is certainly not true: that scientists have some greater insight into the workings of nature than poets, or vice versa. Some people feel that, deep down, scientists have some inner knowledge that is barred to others. The expertise of a scientist is an expertise acquired by learning and, unless others acquire the required learning, that particular piece of the universe of knowledge is, indeed, barred to those others. Poetry soars in the world of science.(1) It soars all around the tangible, in deep dark, through a world the scientist reveals and makes his own. Poetry in the hands of a lover of life and words, a person with great knowledge and wisdom, can soar in the worlds of intellect and understanding the two most luminous lights in the world of creation.(2) -Ron Price with thanks to (1)Roald Hoffman, “Science, Language and Poetry,” The Pantaneto Forum, Issue 6, April 2002; and (2)Abdul-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, Wilmette, 1970, p.1.

What can I say of today?
Slept late and also had a
sleep after lunch: hardly
productive one could say.
But how can one measure
the success of a single day?

Got a handle on Homer more
than I’ve ever had: The Iliad
and The Odyssey as well as
Simone Weil. She was a delight,(1)
especially her essay on The Iliad
and its closing words about the idea
of rediscovering: “the epic genius…
no refuge from fate…learning not to
hate the enemy….…how soon will this
happen?” she asks. It has happened;(2)
it has already happened, Simone: it was
born in the Siyah-Chal in Tehran and its
light is spreading around the world to
every corner of our planetizing globe.

1 Simone Weil(1909-1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist.
2 Simone Weil, “The Iliad or the Poem of Force,” Chicago Review, 18.2, 1965.

Ron Price
12 September 2010

[Smiler]

Hi Ron
Maybe the language is under stress because the people are?

Science to me is words no matter how poetic sounding based on logic and reasoning... a hpothosis (lol hope I spelt that right ) needing proof of some distinction by a group to become a fact....Therefore it is pural

A poet.. Is singular .. a sole creator of their own words and feelings based on emotion and feelings...their words may not sound as thrilling as a scientific word but the feeling is total and unique.

Just thought Id answer your thread Ron
cant have it sitting there alone..
its a interesting thread.

blessings
:)

On some level I find the marriage between science and poetry. The gap is blurred and I can see beauty in both in the same proportion and amount.

Belated Thanks, Folks---after nearly 6 months. Better late than never. I just watched Brian Cox on television and will post a little think piece below on this program since it continued the theme of science and poetry.-Ron
----------------------
TIME

Wonders of the Universe is a 2011 television series produced by the BBC and hosted by physicist Brian Cox. Wonders of the Universe was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC2 on 6 March 2011 and in Australia on ABC1 on 19 July.1 The series comprises four episodes, each of which focuses on an aspect of the universe and features a 'wonder' relevant to the theme. It follows on from Cox's previous series for the BBC, Wonders of the Solar System, which was first broadcast in 2010.

Wikipedia informs me that in the UK 6 million watched the first episode. Cox and the BBC are also reportedly responsible for a hike in telescope sales. But, as night follows day or, as a planetary nebula becomes a white dwarf, Cox and the program have its detractors. I’ll let you read about them for they are easily accessible in cyberspace.

The universe is filled with over a hundred billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. In the first episode, the one I watched yesterday evening in the middle of an Australian winter, Cox considered the nature of time in this vastness of billions and billions. He explored, briefly, the cycles of time that astronomers and physicists have now named and described.

Cox also discussed the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, its effect on time, and the Heat Death theory concerning the end of the universe. I’ll leave you to google all this to your heart’s content if, indeed, your heart and mind want to get more content, more stimulated or more amazed beyond human understanding.(1)-Ron Price with thanks to (1)ABC1, 19 July 2011, 8:30-9:30 p.m.

We all react to different aspects of programs,
and that is only saying the obvious, eh, Brian?
I was most impressed by the idea of time’s line:
the cosmological terms and those many epochs
beginning with the Planck epoch, the stages of
the early universe, and of structure formation:
stars, galaxies, clusters, super-clusters and the
ultimate fate of the universe in billions of years.1
What went on in the first trillionth of a second in
that growth from sub-microscopic to astronomical
size in the blink of an eye?2 I’ve had a fascination
with time since the ‘50s and those first years of the
atomic age when the edge of self-destruction filled
our time and I joined a new religion with its cycles &
periods, eras & epochs, phases & stages, and plans.3

1 and 2 are URLs-but can't post URLs yet.
3 The Baha’i Faith

Ron Price
19 July 2011

[norseman]

The poetry of Science is evident in nature as Cox presents it, also David Attenborough.
The Science of poetry is, to my mind, best seen in the works of Kahlil Gibran.

Welcome, Ron !

Thanks, norseman, for your thoughtful reflections and comments whose sentiments I share completely.-Ron