Writer as Scientist as Writer

A shortcut through time

Years ago, before The Martian Chronicles were written and when Wool was sheared from sheep, there was a distinct dichotomy between science and the arts. This dichotomy has been with us for years and has influenced not only education but even child rearing. Drake loves numbers and Arielle studies ballet. That concept has been with us long before Descartes thought about the value of logic.

When we talk about art and science, we are also talking about measuring time. Think of the time between the cave drawings of prehistoric man and the creation of the abacus in China. That’s a lot of time. Now consider the length of time between the abacus and the building that housed Eniac; 1,800 square feet to hold 18,000 glowing vacuum tubes surrounded by as many relay switches. The device you are reading this article with has 100,000 times the memory of the Eniac and is a million times faster in its response. Yet the time from the abacus to Eniac is far less than prehistoric man took to reach the abacus. 

Crunching the time span once again, consider the length of time from the Eniac to the Internet. Eniac was developed in 1946. The Internet was developed under the acronym ARPANET in 1969. In twenty-three years, the foundation for the web was already in place. The Cloud was released to the world in 2006 by Google. All of this in less than a human lifespan. The distance from the cave painting to the cloud approaches an almost immeasurable span, but with each development, time compresses itself, and we leap into yet further understanding of our universe.

A scientist and a writer were sitting in a bar.

Probably not true since both are more introverted than extroverted, but the driving forces behind both are remarkably similar. The distinction is in how the problem is perceived. To the scientist, most issues are seen as a collection of events described numerically. The solution depends on finding a precise manipulation of the inputs, like an algorithm, to derive an expectable and repeatable set of outcomes called a solution.

The writer sets down a series of occurrences to be developed. This is the plot of his work or the problem environment. The problem environment like the scientific environment does not change. It is constant. To the static environment, the writer introduces characters. The writer develops these characters with specific attributes and traits. Like the input variables of the scientist, the characters are going to act and react to the environment in such a way that is consistent and repeatable. As the scientist can change the input variables to influence the experiment, so the writer changes the actions and the reactions of his characters to change the plot in a consistent and repeatable manner.

Both scientists and writers look at problems (ideas) openly and uniquely. Instead of constraining their universe they expand it.

Both numeric methods and artistic methods attempt to see the environment in new and unique ways always pushing boundaries to increase our knowledge and our understanding. 

Leonardo da Vinci expressed it best.  “Art is the queen of all sciences, communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world.”

We writers see the world as uniquely and as brilliantly as Einstein saw it.  Use your words as well and as creatively.

Comments are welcome and appreciated.