Jonah Lehrer’s work “The Future of Science is…Art?” is a very interesting piece of writing that argues how art should be incorporated into science and vice versa. Lehrer discussed how art can improve science and help it progress to a higher understanding of our universe and ourselves. He uses the unanswered questions in the fields of physics and neuroscience to support his argument that incorporating art into science will be beneficial. I thought this was an interesting article and that it was much more specific in describing ways to incorporate art than Yo-Yo Ma did.

Glossing the text:

1. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that the position and the velocity of an object can’t be measured exactly at the same time (Brittanica).
2. The bridging principle is making connections (bridging the gap) between two separate ideas.
3. Reductionism is the idea that any idea, no matter how complicated, can be explained by analyzing the simplest mechanics that happen during that phenomenon.
4. A synapse is a junction between two neurons that allow the movement of impulses.
5. An epiphenomenon is essentially a secondary effect of something. It comes from a process but doesn’t directly influence it.
6. Having a holistic perspective means someone is interested in developing a broader person or understanding.
7. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which someone applies a characteristic to an object it isn’t directly applicable to.

Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who was the first person to discover that electrons travel in orbits around the nucleus of an atom. He also discovered that the outer shell of electrons determines the properties of an element. Lehrer used Bohr’s discovery as a way to tie science and art together at the beginning of his paper and give an example of how art has influenced important scientific discoveries.

Lehrer also brought up Virginia Woolf several times in his paper. Woolf was an English writer in the 1900s who was one of the first authors to use consciousness and streams of thought in her works. Lehrer used Woolf’s techniques in writing to explain how the arts can benefit neuroscience.