Dang, now THIS looks like fun!
One of the challenges among scientists is to describe the work they do in language the rest of us can understand. That’s the idea behind a new program at the University of Tennessee that uses music to bridge that communication gap.
The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, or NIMBioS, isn’t a place for intellectual lightweights. The whiteboards are tagged with the frenetic graffiti of advanced math, and the conversations are dense with the mysterious jargon of advanced science. So the last thing you’d expect to see there is an office door with a sign reading, “Songwriter in Residence.”
Jay Clark is one of five Songwriters in Residence who will move in and out of NIMBios this year. Each has one month to write two songs that put the scientific experience into words and music.
“A week and a half, two weeks ago, when I told someone about it, they’d look at me like, ‘What the hell you going to write?’ ” Clark says. “My answer would be, ‘You know, I’m not real sure yet. I’m just hoping it will come to me.’ “
The Songwriter in Residence program is the brainchild of NIMBioS director Louis Gross. Gross noticed that the scientists and mathematicians with whom he works aren’t always that good at communicating their ideas in a concise, accessible way. Moreover, he says, most people don’t really have the time or patience to wade through complicated explanations of scientific theory. As a result, we don’t always have a good sense of what scientists are doing.
“The better that we are at getting the ideas across without going into all the detail that often people are not that interested in, the better off we are as a nation and as a community of scientists,” Gross says.