Polygamy, Black Sabbath and a Scientific Quest
Originally presented at The Storytelling of Science by Science Nation, Wednesday 6th April 2016.
It’s 12:28pm, last Friday, 1st April.
I login into a webinar on “How much science does an ordinary citizen need to function in modern society? Do they need to know facts, understand processes, or be good at visiting Google?”
I know the answer to this already as this is how I make sense of most things. I am excellent at Google.
9:42am, Wednesday 16th March.
I’ve been invited to tell a story about science. For the first time in a long time, I’ve put aside time prior to the deadline to think. I have no ideas, but I trust the rabbit hole network of the internet will provide. I Google.
On the screen is a gif of a woman in a lacy cap staring through a telescope at a comet racing across deep blue skies.
It’s the 266th birthday of Caroline Herschel, an astronomer from the 18th century whose name is vaguely familiar, but who I know little about. I click to a related article in The Telegraph, and at the bottom there is a list of eight famous British women, pioneers in science and maths. Names like Ada Lovelace, Florence Nightingale, Rosalind Franklin.
I wonder if there’s a story I could tell that was more Australian.
I Google. Australian women scientists. Top of the list is a link to a 2015 exhibition in Canberra called The League of Remarkable Australian Women featuring 40 Australian women scientists for National Science Week. Accompanying the article is a photo of Prof Tamara Davis, also an astronomer, and who I recognised immediately, partly from Twitter but primarily because two days prior to my googling she was on a science panel for Q&A that also featured marine ecologist Prof Emma Johnston and nanotechnologist Upulie Divisekera.
I can find no further way into the exhibition profiles.
I think about the role I have taken on, a new role since February, at SciCEd, the Science Creativity Education Studio at the University of South Australia. Here I am trying to crack open any narrow or exclusionary ideas about sciences, technologies, engineering and mathematics so that young people experience science in different contexts, and so that we lay the foundation for later acts of joyous serendipity.
The week before this I listened to artist Eugenie Lee share how she is translating the work of UniSA researchers into an interactive installation about pain and perception.
I rediscover an article by John Maeda from the Rhode Island School of Design lurking in my open tabs. He asks if artists and scientists are all that different, writing “Both are dedicated to asking the big questions placed before us: “What is true? Why does it matter? How can we move society forward?””
I wonder if there is a story I can tell about an artist-scientist instead.
I Google. Artists Scientists.
Can you imagine who comes up? Of course you can!
Leonardo da Vinci — Albert Einstein — Carl Sagan — Richard Feynman — Beatrix Potter — Buckminster Fuller — David Attenborough — Elon Musk — Steve Jobs
Good examples of the “famous man genius” archetype, and whose stories are well known. Just one women, author and illustrator Beatrix Potter.
I Google. Women Artists Scientists Australia.
Can you imagine who comes up? Of course you can’t!
Because no one comes up! I get the same link to the Canberra exhibition I uncovered earlier, a teachers’ guide on women scientists from 1997, 1997!, and a PDF on Australian women’s art in the 18th century as the top three hits.
I’ve reached a dead end. I go back to Beatrix Potter. Beatrix Potter Scientist.
There’s an BBC article from February — “Pioneering scientist or passionate amateur?”, that details her accurate botanical drawings of fungi, mosses and spores and her investigations into lichen and fungi reproduction. It questions the accuracy of portrayals of her as a ground-breaking investigator, revealing this perception had arisen due to a footnote written by the person translating her diary notes — apparently she wrote these all in code.
I am truly down the rabbit hole now.
I am fond of botanical illustrations, having been given two prints from the Oxford Botanic Gardens for my 21st birthday by a family friend who has now retired from pharmacy and spends most of her time restoring overgrown suburban pockets back to natural bush.
Might there be a story in botanical art? I Google.
Hit 1. Maria Sibylla Merian.
Maria was a German botanical artist who published sets of engravings in the late 17th century. Because of the guild system she wasn’t, as a woman, allowed to work in oils, so she used watercolours and gouache instead. She self-funded a scientific exploration to Suriname in South America, observing insects and creating classifications for butterflies and moths that are apparently still useful for today.
Hit 2. Etta Johnston, artist, scientist and social activist.
Etta began exhibiting her oils and watercolours in Scotland in the late 19th century when she was 18. She went on to attend University College in Dundee, publishing four papers on chemistry, physics and engineering, that last paper uncovering links between housing materials and life expectancy which prompted a drive to achieve better sanitation in Dundee, especially in poorer areas. She trained further as a botanical illustrator, but nothing seems to be known of her life after the age of 38, even though she lived to be 90.
Hit 3. Sisters Harriet and Helena Scott.
These sisters moved with their parents from Sydney to live on Ash Island in the Hunter River estuary in Northern New South Wales in the mid 19th century. Their father was an entomologist, and they spent 20 years on the island recording the local butterflies and moths. Harriet and Helena collected live specimens, feeding them with the right sort of plants, and then illustrating, describing and identifying species.
After a detour on how butterflies influenced the writing of Lolita author Vladmir Nabakov, I realise with a jolt that this is still not the story I’m looking for. In botanical illustrations, the science and art are intrinsically connected. It’s not dissimilar to the animations of complex genetics where the art describes the science, and in turn may assist with the scientific understanding.
But I want a bigger story. Where different skills and disciplines entwine in unexpected ways. I’m looking for polymaths.
I Google. Australian polymath. And get former science minister Barry Jones.
Later. 8:28pm Sunday 3rd April as I am trying to make sense of my trail. I search for a better understanding of a what makes a polymath.
An article in Huffington Post I read because it asks whether playing polyrhythms on drums enables creativity says a polymath is someone “whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas; such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems”.
Another article, this one interviewing chemist and novelist Carl Djerassi and others for the Economist, says a polymath is someone who knows a lot about a lot. But adds that Djerassi passes a sterner test: he can do a lot, too. Djerassi himself says ““Nowadays people that are called polymaths are dabblers — are dabblers in many different areas. I aspire to be an intellectual polygamist.” Polygamy, he says, not flitting around with promiscuity. “In the ideal polygamy I suspect there’s no number one wife and no number six wife. You have a deep connection with each person.”
So now I am looking to discover Australian women who are practising intellectual polygamists. The story is almost solved, I just need to find one.
2:18pm Tuesday 15th March, before I start this preparation. I am sitting on a tram returning to work after a council farewell lunch, googling creativity and climate change for ideas for an Australian Institute of Urban Studies briefing. I’m deep in the Arizona State University programs when I read about physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, who can now boast he has the lowest Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath number in the world after appearing in an interview with Johnny Depp.
An Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath number counts the degrees of separation for papers, movies, and songs. To have an Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath number you must have done the following:
- Co-written a scientific paper with someone who eventually connects to co-authoring a paper with mathematician Paul Erdős, who produced more than 1500 publications
- Acted with someone who eventually connects to acting with Kevin Bacon, famous for Footloose and being connected to everyone within six degrees of separation
- Performed a song with someone who eventually connects to performing with Black Sabbath, famous for having the most members of any rock band in history (they had 35).
The lower the number the closer the connections. A perfect Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath Number would be a 3. No one has a 3. Lawrence Krauss now claims a 7. He has Erdős number of 3. Johnny Depp has a Bacon number of 1, and a Black Sabbath number of 1, so by relationship through this interview, Krauss is claiming Bacon and Sabbath numbers of 2.
If he didn’t sing in the interview, I think this is cheating. Plus is an interview really acting? Even if I give him a pass on that, I still don’t think an interview completes the requirement of a song. If we reversed logic, would we give Johnny Depp an Erdős number of 4 on this basis? I don’t think so!
Nevertheless, the Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath number seems to meet my need for finding polymaths that “do”.
10:26am, Wednesday 16th March. I Google to find out more about Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath numbers. Listed by inventors Sean O’Connor and Ross Churchley are more than 40 people with low Erdős-Bacon-Sabbath numbers. It includes people like Terry Pratchett with an EBS of 9 and Colin Firth, seriously, who has an EBS of 11 thanks to a paper he wrote on political orientation and brain structures five years ago. It also includes several women who have EBS of 10 such as neuroscientist and actor Mayim Bailik from Big Bang Theory, mathematician Danica McKellar who played Winnie in the Wonder Years, and Natalie Portman.
But still no Australians. And this got me thinking. Even I’ve got a Bacon number, how hard can it be.
Yes, my Bacon number is an extraordinary low 3 thanks to Russell Dykstra, best known for playing Barney in the TV series Rake. When I was 10, I acted in a Brisbane Arts Theatre production of Oliver! where Russell played the Artful Dodger, and again when I was 12 in a production of Old Mother Hubbard where I played Jill of Jack and Jill fame and Russell’s most famous line was “I’m only doin’ me job”. By typing in Russell’s name to the Oracle of Bacon website I can see if he’s connected to Kevin Bacon. In 2001 he was in Lantana with Anthony LaPaglia, and Anthony LaPagila was in a 1991 movie with Kevin Bacon called “He Said, She Said”. Russell has a Bacon number of 2, and voila, my Bacon number = 3.
Might I have an Erdős number? I think back to my PhD where my supervisor was disappointed for the fact that all my publications were conference proceedings rather than journal papers. It was an industry-focused thesis, but unlikely to reap many academic rewards. I open ResearchGate to see if I’ve actually published anything that could remotely qualify. Then I remember the extraordinary privilege I’ve had in working with Fellows of the Australian Academy of Sciences on the Australia 2050 project over the last 6 years. That project resulted in three publications — two papers in collected works and a third volume. Might I use my collaborators’ esteemed publication records for my own advantage?
10:56am. Wednesday 15th March. I Google “how to calculate Erdős number” and I’m directed to Oakland University in Michigan and their Erdős Number Project. All I need to do is open the Erdos 1 database which has all 511 co-authors of Paul Erdős listed. If I can find one of my co-authors on the list then I have a Erdős number of 2. Easy!
I pull out some most likely co-authors I have from the Australia 2050 project, medical anthropologist Prof Lenore Manderson, complex systems scientist Dr John Finnigan from the CSIRO and climate change scientist Prof Michael Raupach who sadly passed away last year.
None of these these names are showing up as co-authors not surprisingly. I go back and read the rest of the page. It turns out that that the American Mathematical Society through MathsSciNet (if your institution subscribes, thanks UniSA) has a tool to calculate collaboration distance for any two authors included in the Mathematical Reviews. They even have an Erdős shortcut button!
I start with Lenore. Nothing. John Finnigan. Well this is exciting. He has an Erdős number of 6 from a publication on “Constructing scale-free networks by a matrix stability approach” in 2010. I give it a try with Mike Raupach.
Mike had a paper on “Using the Kalman filter for parameter estimation in biogeochemical models” with Ian Enting in 2008. Enting wrote a paper with Bruce Richmond in 1992 on “Enumeration of almost-convex polygons on the square lattice”. And Richmond co-authored a paper in 1976 on “Concerning periodicity in the asymptotic behaviour of partition functions” with, yes, Paul Erdős. Therefore, Mike Raupach has an Erdos number of 3, giving me, by way of a joint publication entitled “Negotiating our future — Living Scenarios for Australia to 2050”, an Erdős number of 4.
This means I have an Erdős-Bacon number of 7, and that’s still a thing.
Can I get a Sabbath number?
I did choirs and orchestras at school, but that doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the chase. Nor can I recall anyone from those years who might have gone on to have a rock career.
I did serve on a school council with a guy who played Ozzy Osbourne in a Black Sabbath tribute band (Hi Glen!), but I don’t think that counts either.
I’m now determined to record some music with someone who can claim degrees of separation to Black Sabbath. I’m ok if it takes a couple of years. I’m happy to learn an instrument, enrol in voice lessons, whatever it takes. Anything you can do to help would be appreciated!
8:59pm, Sunday 3 April
Picking up performance, my mind skips from music to lyrics to poetry. I Google. Poetry and polymaths.
Reading an interview with nuclear physicist and Haiku poet Akito Amira -
tulip petals dropping…
one of them the ear
of Vincent Van Gogh
- there was a reference to the 19th century Russian mathematician and writer Sofya Kovalevskaya. She said “it is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in spirit.” Both science and art require the “utmost imagination”.
Still in search of a story I can tell, I return to the gif of the deep blue skies, and I find Caroline Herschel was both astronomer and soprano.
So let us be inspired by Google, and beyond. Let us develop the utmost imaginations. Let us create a place of polymaths — of thinkers, of dabblers and of doers.
