How Physics And Journalism Can Compliment Each Other

Roar writer Abdus Shaik on how Physics and Journalism can complement each other and are not at odds despite what campus may feel like. 

Historically, we have always seen Science and the Arts as beings that are worlds apart and have a clear line that distinguishes them. But as time flows, or as we travel through time, that line is starting to fade. Science and the Arts are starting to seem more compatible and “frictionless” with each other.

Why did we always assume that Science and the Arts are separate? 

The main difference between these two massive branches of knowledge is that science has always been objective. It’s about an ‘input’ and an ‘output’, it’s always been straightforward. Whereas the Arts is more subjective, it’s about understanding the reasoning behind a complex idea and scenario. Another major difference is that the Arts is about expressing knowledge in a subjective form whereas the Sciences have always been about acquiring knowledge.

To simplify these ideas, our mind always perceives something that is more Mathematical with numbers, to be something that is Scientific whereas a concept filled with words and emotions that require understanding and comprehension, is associated with the Arts. But throughout the recent decades, that understanding is slowly starting to change.

How Science and the Arts have more in common than we think 

Both Science and the Arts have the same fundamental goal, to understand the world around us. The way they explain things or achieve that goal may be different however that goal is nonetheless, the same.

As human beings, our fundamental nature requires us to understand things around us and to comprehend what’s going on. If we are unable to do that, it leads to fear of the object or idea that can’t be understood or comprehended. And if one of us does end up understanding how something works, why something happens, or what something is, we end up sharing it with others cause we are social beings. Others’ successes and failures matter to us and we learn from them. Both Scientists and Artists with nothing new to reveal and/or with no way of communicating an idea/concept to their audience are failures.

And at the same time, both the Arts and Sciences have their own ways of benefiting this world. Applied Sciences is Technology and applied Art is Decoration. Both Technology and Decoration and the fundamental blocks of today’s world. Imagine the world without mobile phones or airplanes, how would people travel and go on holidays? And if they did, how would they enjoy themselves without the decorations and the arts?

How Physics and Journalism can work together

Looking back at how the Sciences and the Arts are about propagating knowledge in different forms, it might be time for us to realize that the stigma surrounding Science is due to the means that have been used to propagate it. In simple terms, why would the normal man want to read a complicated research journal when all he can see is wonky diagrams and Greek symbols he can’t comprehend while he could read a beautiful poem that puts his mind at ease. With all due respect, the Science journal on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) might be more useful than the poem on water droplets, but people would refuse to read it because of how it is explained. People prefer simpler ideas, shorter sentences, words that are more frequently used.

This clearly explains that the way Science is propagated to the normal public needs to be changed. Although Science journalism does exist, it needs to expand in volume. Scientists should look at the Arts and understand their methods of preaching in order to gain a larger audience to explain their important and powerful ideas. And this might lead to more people being interested in the sciences, which would inevitably lead to more faith in the sciences. Therefore, preventing societal issues such as vaccine hesitancy and climate change deniers.

But it’s not just the Scientists who should do the learning, Artists have a lot to gain from Science as well. Being more objective and concise is something that the human brain loves. And this is what the arts could use every now and then to appeal to a wider audience that includes people with a “scientific” mind.

Science journalism might also help us tackle vaccine hesitancy or reduce the amount of false information that’s rapidly spreading across the internet regarding climate change and how it’s called a “hoax” these days. Such journalism could explain complicated scientific concepts in a more simplified way, to people who might not have extensive knowledge on such topics. Which would allow us to see such issues from a different perspective and make it not seem so foreign anymore as science and scientific knowledge is not accepted by a lot of people because of how “foreign” it might seem and psychologically, humans tend to not believe in things that they cannot comprehend

It will be interesting to see how things change in the future, how Science and the Arts collaborate more and complement each other instead of competing with each other. How Journalism can support Science and spread its message and explain its uses and the understanding behind complex ideas.