…and can Artists be Astronomers?

I was reading again about Brian May, the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen and chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. He started out in college doing work for a PhD in astrophysics, left it to join the band, and then in 2007 went back and finished his thesis and graduated in 2008 with the Fudd.

Now, I don’t see anything too unusual about this. Back in the day when I worked at a science lab at the university, a fair number of us geeks were also into artsy things. I myself play piano (not well), know how to sing, and play recorder. And, I write short stories, know how to embroider, and love to diddle with stuff in Photoshop. Another grad student at the lab was a ballet dancer (and she kept it up throughout all her years in grad school). Another was a guitarist and we also had a couple of drummers, a flautist or two, a saxophonist, and even a small recorder ensemble tucked away in various departments at the lab.

Lately I’ve run into astronomer-writers, astronomer-singers, astronomer-actors, and even an astronomer-belly dancer.

And, of course, there are the wonderful folks who are astronomers and space artists — putting their many and varied passions to work to show us how the universe looks.

In fact, I’ve found out over the years that scientists (and not just astronomers) are often quite accomplished at some aspect of art or design, too. Historically, some of the early astronomers composed music (Herschel), painted (18th-century amateur John Russell), and were quite creative and artsy types.

On campus, many of us spent time going to concerts at the music school and perusing exhibits at the art school. We didn’t always see art students and music school students coming to our Thursday afternoon colloquia to learn more about science, which I think is kind of sad. I think that science and art go hand in hand, like some great cosmic thread that ties together the creativity a scientist needs to explore the universe with the same impulse that  an artist needs to sculpt and sing and paint.