What do famous a famous painter and a famous musician have in common with the winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize in physics? The activities of all involved physics! What is red paint, and why does it look red (or not)? Why goes on that we can hear a violin, and why does a violin sound different from a flute? How can the eye be fooled into seeing something that is not there? What do Einstein, Cezanne and Faulkner have in common? In this seminar we explored these and other questions involving physics. We began with a discussion of Leonard Schlain's book "Art and Physics", a book that argues that revolutions in art often were precursors of scientific revolutions, that revolutionary ideas in science involved the expression in mathematical form of revolutionary ideas in physics. We then jumped into a sessions that were centered on as many experiments as could be squeezed into a seminar period. As the curriculum units of the Fellows became more focused, so did the choice of experiments. Toawrd the end of the seminar each Fellow gave two short talks, one in which a physics activity from their unit was demonstrated and a final one in which the broadly described their unit. Together, we explored the behavior of sound waves and light waves. We learned how the frequency of the wave motions is related to pitch for sound and to color for light. We learned about how waves transport energy.
We learned about interference and diffraction, which are responsible for "dead spots" in concert halls and for the iridescence of bird feathers and dichroic glass. We learned about standing waves and harmonics, which determine the characteristic sounds of musical instruments. We also studied how sound and light sometimes seems to travel in straight lines as rays. Thus, we could come to some understanding of shadows, pinhole cameras, lenses, and mirrors (both optical and accoustical). We moved on the the human visual system to learn how we see color and depth. What tricks does the painter use to make a circle on a flat piece of paper appear to us to be three-dimensional? What is it about Escher drawings that makes them realistic and unrealistic at the same time? Why do we see first one perspective then an opposite for some drawings (like the Necker cube)? In short, we studied the nature of optical illusions.
Finally we studied the foundations of special relativity, especially time dilation and the twin paradox (in which two twins moving at high relative speed each believes the other is aging more slowly). This led into a discussion of how at roughly the same time as Einstein was overturning centuries-old notions of space and time in physics, painters (such as Cezanne, Picasso, and Braque), writers (such as Kafka and Faulkner), and musicians (such as Schoenberg and Stravinsky) were also breaking traditional bonds in their fields.
Braque to Bach to Bohr:
Physics and the Arts
Seminar Leader: Colston Chandler
Seminar Description:
What do famous a famous painter and a famous musician have in common with the winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize in physics? The activities of all involved physics! What is red paint, and why does it look red (or not)? Why goes on that we can hear a violin, and why does a violin sound different from a flute? If painters can represent three dimensions in their two-dimensional paintings, can sculptors represent four dimensions in their three-dimensional work? Why do dancers appear to float when they leap, and how do they spin so elegantly? Why do some bird feathers and the dichroic glass that some glass artists now use change appearance as lighting changes? How do artists trick the brain to see and hear what is not really there?
Because answers to all these questions are best learned in hands-on activities, this seminar will mainly be given over to activities that illustrate the physics of the various arts (painting, theater, music, photography, dance, sculpture, even literature). Which activities we do will depend on the interests of the Fellows.
The seminar will focus on understanding the fundamental concepts of physics as they arise in the context of the arts. This is physics at its most profound, where careful observation and analytical thinking reign supreme. Almost no mathematics beyond arithmetic and intuitive geometry will appear, or even be useful.
Readings:
Because the topic of the seminar is so vast, there is no one book, or even a small collection of books or articles, that could be useful as a common reading list. Instead, we will use a general physics textbook, Conceptual Physics by Paul G. Hewitt, as a common reference work, and Fellows will mine the UNM libraries for the books and articles that are relevant for their particular interests. For example, there are whole books devoted to the physics of classical dance, to the physics of musical instruments, to the physics of the visual aspect of the arts, and to the physics of photography. Plays and literary essays associated with important physics ideas are to be found. I am planning to work individually (or collectively, as appropriate and desired) with Fellows to develop individual reading lists before intense work begins in June.
We need to start with a common base, however, and I am asking all Fellows to read Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light by Leonard Shlain. We will begin our seminar by sharing our opinions of the material and views expressed in that book and discussing their relevance to our own individual interests. We will quickly move on to some hands-on activities intended to help us understand some of the fundamental physics concepts that we do need. By the last week of the seminar it is expected that the Fellows will be leading the seminar in activities and discussions relevant to the curriculum units they are writing.
Biography of Seminar Leader:
Colston Chandler has been a member of the UNM physics faculty since 1966. He has taught
physics related courses to non-science students for over twenty years. He took painting
and ceramics lessons when a child, sang in choruses when a student, did a little
photography for a time, listened to a lot of rock music while his children were growing
up, and now goes frequently to museums, galleries, plays, and classical music concerts.
