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The dude was quite smart.

And pretty crazy.  

Sometimes those go hand in hand.

Dirac and Oppenheimer spent some time together in Göttingen. The two young physicists from different parts of the world had become good friends. In one of these days, Dirac noticed that Oppenheimer wrote poetry.

Dirac asserted, "Robert, I do not understand how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time."

Paul Dirac, Robert Oppenheimer Poetry Anecdote

"Why not?" Oppenheimer asked.

"In physics, you want to tell something that nobody knew before, in words which everyone can understand. In poetry, however, you go on to describe something that everybody knows about, in incomprehensible ways."

Oppenheimer was left too confused to respond to that.

Dirac went on to say, "The two are incompatible!"

Dirac and Oppenheimer spent some time together in Göttingen. The two young physicists from different parts of the world had become good friends. In one of these days, Dirac noticed that Oppenheimer wrote poetry.

Dirac asserted, "Robert, I do not understand how a man can work on the frontiers of physics and write poetry at the same time."

Paul Dirac, Robert Oppenheimer Poetry Anecdote

"Why not?" Oppenheimer asked.

"In physics, you want to tell something that nobody knew before, in words which everyone can understand. In poetry, however, you go on to describe something that everybody knows about, in incomprehensible ways."

Oppenheimer was left too confused to respond to that.

Dirac went on to say, "The two are incompatible!"

Heh, that's pretty interesting.

As a guy who is both an engineer, and at least a bit of an author and artist, I view it differently.

I actually view them as two sides of the same coin.

For me, the great appeal of Physics, is that it searches for and delivers a language to communicate and describe HOW and WHY everyday things happen.

Poetry and art, on the other hand, search for and deliver a language to communicate and describe the beauty, or the comedy, or the tragedy, that occur WHEN everyday things happen.

But really those are just two different views of the same thing, so I don't view them as incompatible at all.  And being able to speak and listen in either language, is a tremendous benefit. 

When my i s c & a aggie wife was trying to get into Physical Therapy grad school, she found she needed a couple of hard science prerequisites, so she took them at the local community college in order to satisfy the requirements for entry into grad school.

I tutored her in both, and she got As in both.  But she definitely struggled more with Chemistry, it just wasn't that relatable to her.  But when I tutored her in Physics, I described to her why I truly love Physics so much-- because it clearly explains and demonstrates the HOW and WHY, hidden behind the WHAT, we see in front of us every day. And because the results of Physical interactions are so clearly observable, she was able to relate very well, and she too found that she loved understanding the HOW behind it all.  She actually grew to really like Physics and looked forward to our time working on it.

Now, in deference to our great Chemistry friend Cincy, personally I think the same is true of Chemistry.  It's just a little harder to see.

P-Chem was a pretty tough class, from what I understand.

Chem-Es talked about P-Chem, the same way EEs talked about E-mag.

Personally I really liked E-mag, but it was certainly challenging.

P-Chem was a pretty tough class, from what I understand.

Chem-Es talked about P-Chem, the same way EEs talked about E-mag.

Personally I really liked E-mag, but it was certainly challenging.

I didn't find E&M all that tough. But it's partly because it was a repeat for me as I took AP Physics in high school.

Funny thing about Purdue. I got 5's on both the mechanics and E&M portions of the AP test. That meant nothing. Purdue allowed me to take the PHYS 152 (mechanics) final during the summer before freshman year, and passing that PLUS my 5 on the AP test got me credit. For PHYS 261 (not only was this E&M, this was E&M for EE majors) there was no way out. I had to take it. 

Now, EE 311, Electromagnetic Fields & Waves, THAT was outright hell. It was E&M in the world of multivariate calculus. If you could actually figure out how to properly describe the program as a triple integral, the integrals weren't super-hard to solve. But actually getting from the problem statement to the right equation? Damn near impossible. Hardest class I've ever taken, in any discipline, in my entire life. 

I didn't find E&M all that tough. But it's partly because it was a repeat for me as I took AP Physics in high school.

Funny thing about Purdue. I got 5's on both the mechanics and E&M portions of the AP test. That meant nothing. Purdue allowed me to take the PHYS 152 (mechanics) final during the summer before freshman year, and passing that PLUS my 5 on the AP test got me credit. For PHYS 261 (not only was this E&M, this was E&M for EE majors) there was no way out. I had to take it.

Now, EE 311, Electromagnetic Fields & Waves, THAT was outright hell. It was E&M in the world of multivariate calculus. If you could actually figure out how to properly describe the program as a triple integral, the integrals weren't super-hard to solve. But actually getting from the problem statement to the right equation? Damn near impossible. Hardest class I've ever taken, in any discipline, in my entire life.

When I said E-mag that's what I was talking about. E-mag is short for Electromagnetic Field and Wave Theory. For us I think it was EE323.  The "Radome Problem" occupied a great deal of my test time.

I have no idea what "E&M" means?