Comparing the Incomparable ‘Speaking Out' and the Use of Drawings in Notebooks by Physicists

Abstract

To understand the possibility of interaction between scientific experimenting and artistic drawing in the form of drawings made in notebooks, assumed is a common element, a spiritual property, and transference as a mechanism for causality. Scientists, scientific experiments and artistic drawings all have different merits. Here the concept ‘speaking out' in its meaning of expressiveness is proposed to bridge these differences. Scientific action and artistic action cannot be compared directly. However, a common spiritual element will make the scientist, investigated object, experimental set-up and notebook drawings comparable in the sense of translations authorized by the scientist. They all then speak out from the same source.

In this paper considered are recent drawings made by physicists during experimentation, in notebooks and diaries. Discussed is transferal causality between the physicist, the artistic drawing and all the relevant objects belonging to the experiment. Spiritual properties are introduced for the physicist being a person, and for the investigated object, the experimental set-up and the drawings as objects. The underlying effort, how persons and nature interact in a two-way interference, can be established par example in this way.