Introduction:
Many publications in philosophy and literature suggest that art is subjective and based on personal feelings, opinions, and perspectives; while science is objective and based on hard fact.
I don’t believe that this is entirely true. An artist aims to express himself beyond what is seen, felt, tasted, smelled, and heard. A scientist is no different. Their data aims to represent, explain and reveal what is beyond what we see, touch, taste, smell, and hear. An artist’s content— their data— might not always aim to understand nature, but the art is no more subjective than science.
Below, I use my own research, exploring how Germanium Atoms express themselves, as an example of how the lines between subjective art and objective science are blurred, and how drawing these lines in the first place might even be unnatural.
The image above shows Germanium atoms expressing themselves: how they move about in a three-dimensional Germanium crystal. The intense pressure at the center of the earth purifies Germanium “flowers” and turns them into symmetrical crystals. Once purified, interactions between the small dense regions at the center of Germanium atoms, called nuclei, create chemical bonds that stabilize pure Germanium crystals and allow their atoms to vibrate and jiggle at certain frequencies. In the animation above, this is shown by the time-axis.
Note: note that 3D space is not uniquely represented, i.e. there is not a unique choice of three orthogonal axes to plot the data against, or to look at the crystal structure.
Art in Material Science:
Germanium atoms express themselves subjectively by vibrating symmetrically, forming bonds, and holding a crystal structure.
Scientists use a large neutron gun to “energize” or amplify the activity of the Germanium so it can be viewed (in a process called Inelastic Neutron Scattering), but these scientists don’t yet understand how and why Germanium atoms express themselves in these shapes.
Just as the mind of an artist is unpredictable and shifts, so does nonhuman phenomena in the natural world. Wood doesn’t form crystals and express itself the way Germanium metal does; and as humans we have objectively observed this. Objective observations become subjective merely by a shift in point of view; as if science were the third-person, and art were the first-person. Regardless, subjective expression, art, is and has always been an intrinsic part of science. Therefore, we need to change these historical perspectives of art and science first if we plan to move forward in STEM research.
