On Poetry

The late theoretical physicist Eugene Wigner remarked on the “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” in the natural sciences. By this he was drawing attention to the mysterious fact that mathematics seems to be the natural language of the sciences. Often when I am trying to solve a problem in physics, I have the uncanny feeling that the mathematics, somehow, knows more about the problem and its solution than I do. It is the mathematics that guides me, not the contrary. It is possible to imagine a great scientist without deep knowledge of mathematics – it is said that Michael Faraday was one such. But to capture the essence of science – one needs mathematics.

Mathematics seems to bear the same relation to the natural sciences as poetry bears to literature. Poetry similarly has the potential to capture the essence of a mood, often in as concise a way as mathematics. The extreme limit of conciseness is perhaps exemplified by the Japanese haiku , (17 syllables) but the less formalized sonnet form is a close runner. When I was a very young man I was moved to attempt versions of the latter form on occasion. Here is one example from 1960 - a typical youthful look ahead.

Ode to Youth (1960)

I've seen less years than most; the sighs, the hopes,

The groundless fears are with me still,

Fresh longings and ambitions,

Not "Might have been" but "will".

I've seen more years than some, and walked

In gardens strange, shed tears and felt the touch of one who loved.

The years I long for most of all to see

Are those ahead, the future yet to be.

The only connection with the traditional English sonnet form is the termination on a rhyming couplet. Even a great poet like Wordsworth uses, in what might otherwise have been his great ballad The Thorn , a hilariously inappropriate couplet (concerning a pond in which a baby may or may not have drowned):

I've measured it from side to side:
'Tis three feet long, and two feet wide.

This brings to mind the witticism of Oscar Wilde concerning the death of Little Nell in Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop

“One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”

The following poem encapsulates my wonder at the grandeur of Science, foreseeing a lifetime spent in its conquest, but terminating with the sort of inappropriate Wordsworthian line which would have amused Wilde.

On visiting the Palais de la Decouverte, Paris 1960

Outside 'tis Nature's world. A breeze

Blows light. The sun shines down on men

Who walk with purpose. Captive trees

Ranged dutifully along the street

Lead to the building, large, ashen,

Hewn from reinforced concrete.

Inside, in spite of gloom, the light

Of knowledge flashes all around.

Glass cases full of facts, held tight,

Extracted from the grasp of dark

By those who would not yield, abound.

What wealth of Science, human force spent, filed, now lies inert

Beneath the dome of the Palais de la Decouverte?

Perhaps it is just as well I stuck to Mathematics!