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Art vs. Science - progress report on
E=mcpoppycock
- SlingShot 09/08/05
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Those who say art
is not a science, do not understand art.
Those who say science is not an art,
do not understand science.
- Bob Fugett |
10/04/05
Mary finished Bodanis, 2000 yesterday and is ready to have it
passed on to
Paul. Today Mary points out her note re: speed in
Bodanis:
Bodanis, 2000, p. 257, discussion re: speed increases necessitate a
logarithmic increase in effort, and Mary always describes her larger
paintings as taking an exceptional increase in effort. The section from
Bodanis follows:
Athletes perform these complex calculations all the time. Most
schoolchildren can toss a ball at 20 mph, but only a few professional
athletes can throw a ball at 100 mph. It's "only" five times as fast,
but since energy goes up as the square of the speed (E=mv2),
the athlete has to generate 25 times as much energy. What's more she
has to do it in only 1/ 5 the
time. (For if the athlete took exactly as long to move her arm as the
child did, the ball would come out at only 20 mph.) To pour out 25
times more energy, in 1/5
the time, means she
needs to generate 25 x 5 or 125 times more power! Other effects such as
air resistance make it even harder. The one factor that does help an
adult athlete is having a longer lever arm than a child.
Then Mary points out a statement in the same re: art vs. science:
Bodanis, 2000, p. 297,
Great artists and composers often do their top work as they get
old, but scientists don't. Partly this could be because it's
intellectually too difficult to hold complex ideas in one's head.
To which .BF points to his own note re: art vs. science in Feynman,
1995:
p. 47, sideways acknowledgement that art is often considered
secondary in rigor to science,
We must, incidentally, make it clear from the beginning that if
a thing is not a science, it is not necessarily bad. For example, love
is not a science. So, if something is said not to be a science, it
does not mean that there is something wrong with it; it just means
that it is not a science.
Bob's Note: Those who say art is not a science, do not
understand art. Those who say science is not an art, do not
understand science.
This causes .BF to add his note as a heading
statement to the test page which uses the new Sql images interface,
the output of which illustrates his point very well.
Bibliography
- Alhir, Sinan Si. "Learning Uml".
Cambridge: O'Reilly, 2003. ISBN: 0-596-00344-7
- Andrew, Paul, et al. "Presenting
Windows Workflow Foundation: Beta Edition". Indianapolis: SAMS,
2006. ISBN: 0-672-32848-8
- Bodanis, David. "E=Mc2: A
Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation". New York: Berkley
Books, 2000. ISBN: 0-425-18164-2
- Feynman, Richard P. "Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained
by Its Most Brilliant Teacher". New York: Basic Books, 1995. ISBN:
0-465-02392-4
this page last updated:
02/01/2015 10:38:50 PM
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