C.P. Snow’s classic book The Two Cultures mistakenly presupposes artists and scientists speak mutually incomprehensible languages. But Art (Invention) and Science (Discovery), are both produced by the same type of brain. Poet Robert Frost believed Poetry and Science both use metaphoric thinking, “saying one thing and meaning another;” mathematician Henri Poincaré’s classic essay demonstrates the best solutions are precisely the most beautiful, “invention is discernment.” There are artists who think like scientists (Eakins) and scientists who think like artists (Einstein) and individuals (Leonardo) who do both. Our brains are built to compare, making a metaphor is a very good example of how brains “think.” Our brain has two tremendous advantages over other animals: (1) a very large number of cells and connections, and (2) a large amount of non-specialized Association Cortex where different sensations meet and memories stored. In fact, there is an area in your brain responsible for the creation of metaphors and the ability to understand them.
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MICHAEL SALCMAN former neurosurgery chairman, University of Maryland and president of The Contemporary Museum, a child of the Holocaust and a survivor of polio; author of six medical books, seven poetry books and 200 scientific papers. Poems in Barrow Street, Harvard Review, Hopkins Review, Hudson Review, New Letters, Notre Dame Review, Raritan and Smartish Pace. Books include The Clock Made of Confetti (nominee The Poets' Prize), The Enemy of Good is Better, Poetry in Medicine, classic and contemporary poems on medicine, A Prague Spring (Sinclair Poetry Prize winner), Shades & Graces (winner Daniel Hoffman Legacy Book Prize), Necessary Speech: New & Selected Poems and Crossing the Tape (2024).