"I could not see any place in science for my creativity or imagination", was the explanation, of a bright school leaver to the author, of why she had abandoned all study of science. Yet as any scientist knows, the imagination is essential to the immense task of re-creating a shared model of nature from the scale of the cosmos to the smallest subatomic structures. A four year project led to the book, The Poetry and Music of Science (OUP 2019), which takes a journey through the creative process in the arts as well as sciences. The lecture draws on both past testimony and contemporary accounts of scientists, artists, mathematicians, writers, and musicians today to explore the commonalities and differences in creation. Tom McLeish finds that the ‘Two Cultures’ division between the arts and the sciences is not after all, the best classification of creative processes. Instead, the three modes of visual, textual and abstract imagination have woven the stories of the arts and sciences together. The lecture concludes by asking how creativity contributes to what it means to be human.

Biography

Tom McLeish, FRS, is Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Department of Physics and also in the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York, UK. His research in ‘soft matter and biological physics,’ is highly interdisciplinary, including industrial collaboration. He has published at academic and popular levels in theology/science and humanities/science issues including the books Faith and Wisdom in Science (OUP 2014) and The Poetry and Music of Science (OUP 2019). He is currently Chair of the Royal Society’s Education Committee and a Trustee of the John Templeton Foundation.

Twitter: @mcleish_t

Refreshments will be available from 5.30pm onwards.

This lecture is free and all are welcome to attend.

Please note that are no restrictions for visitors on parking in areas marked for staff parking, including the Keele Hall courtyard, from 5.00pm.

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