"What do I mean when I say “the impersonal dream”? I mean just that—it is anything but personal. It is not about you and it is not about me. It is about the act of creativity, about that “sudden seeing” of a possibility we have never seen before, when we suddenly become aware, intensely aware, of some condition, some reality, some frozen particle of time and space that is just dying to be fixed, or changed, or reinvented, or transformed."
- Michael Gerber
Every human being who makes a significant impact on civilisation has at one time or the other embarked on what Joseph Campbell first brought forth with great force as “The Hero’s Journey,” in his book, “The Hero With a Thousand Faces.” According to him, the Hero’s Journey or monomyth is an archetypal stage in the growth of the human being who steps out of the ordinary, conventional, everyday life into the extraordinary, unconventional, exalted life of the Hero much against his own inclinations, by force of necessity and by the impulsion of “The Call,” to venture forth from the known to the unknown. The Hero’s Journey almost parallels a paradigm shift signifying a complete departure from the present stage to the greater future awaiting in the promised land.
Dr. B S Ramachandra’s life and work is a illustration of this kind of journey. And his life and work is all the more so because of the deep sense of impersonality it is endowed with. It is precisely this impersonality that makes it very significant to communicate it. Most often, the world never knows what it has lost simply because the journey is all but lost. What really characterizes Joseph Campbell’s definition of the hero’s journey is the element of deliverance, the glimpse and approach to the promised land, some deep truth, wisdom, teaching that is distinctive. And always it is something that makes the world a much better place than it was before the advent of the hero. Most often, it is posterity that recognises and benefits from it more than the present. In what follows, we capture, in his own words, via a conversation with Karthik Bharadwaj (KB), the nature and meaning of the impersonal dream Dr. B S Ramachandra has pursued and the profound meaning it has for the future of humanity.
KB: I think it would be nice to start from the beginning! How much were your initial conditions responsible for the journey you embarked upon eventually?
Dr. BSR: I think there are generally certain distinctive initial conditions that give an idea of the future development of an individual. Perhaps it would be better to use the word traits rather than conditions because it is only in retrospect that one gets to look for initial conditions. What is actually exhibited in childhood could more often be traits that could be connected through several dots into a continuous curve extending to the future. In my case, one of those traits was a tremendous thirst for knowledge of all kinds and especially for reading. I was attracted strongly to books, especially storybooks, picture books, comics of all kinds and more so of those that portrayed historical, mythological, cultural personalities. During those times, two sources supplied that want, the Amar Chitra Katha series and the Chandamama magazine. Both had lots of culture, history and folk related stories. I absorbed all of them with a voracious appetite. Indeed, so great was my interest in these and other storybooks, that I can safely claim that all my learning worth the name comes from these. School, in my case, at least, had very little to do with my learning. Even my English came from my own reading. I would say that school, rather, hindered my learning right through and up to the 10th grade. Yes, now that I come to think off it, I learned hardly anything from school. No, not language, not science, not history, not culture…nothing. It was a sheer waste of my time and energy and of course, potential.
KB: So what would you say was the role of school in your education?
Dr. BSR: School nearly destroyed me and proves the dictum that “what does not destroy you makes you stronger.” School almost annihilated me and when I did survive, I emerged stronger intellectually, though not emotionally.
KB: Why do you say “intellectually,” and not “emotionally.”
Dr. BSR: I mean, right from my first grade, I found school utterly meaningless, monotonous and debilitating. As soon as I stepped into school, I felt a premonition that the doors of learning were being closed to me, at least as long as I would be in it during the day. And I could do nothing about it as it was socially and culturally very respectable to be at school and excel in it. When the whole of society endorsed it like that, what could a child do except comply helplessly. I did that and perhaps as a person who is condemned to a long term sentence in prison wonders at the time of deliverance, I, year after year hoped for that. Of course, I soon learned to say I liked school as I realised no one would like to listen to the bitter truth. Fortunately, I continued any voracious reading outside of school especially by going to the libraries. I read everything I could get my hands on especially on culture and history. At that time I was more interested in the humanities. In a sense, I still do. I am more drawn to life than to objects and phenomena. My interest in science came a little later. So intellectually I grew strong. But as my emotional needs were suppressed, I did not develop much in that sector. I learned not to express my emotions lest I would be ridiculed for my independent views on learning, school etc.
KB: When you say you learned not to express emotions, what exactly do you mean? What were the emotions you felt and that you would have liked to express?
Dr. BSR: I have always been a highly sensitive person with strong emotions. I feel very strongly about Nature, animals, things, the universe, about all of existence. And I usually have strong views also about freedom, independence, respect, dignity. So whenever I felt these values being restricted especially by school, I tried to express my views. Sometimes I received encouragement. And at other times, I did not. I soon lost the expression I think, rather than ceasing to express myself. Whenever I felt my sense of values being not respected, I learned to remain silent and this atrophied my emotional development. I think I was quite lucky to be a not so good student. I escaped the fate that people like Norbert Wiener and John Stuart Mill faced as they were exceptionally brilliant students and attracted the attention of their elders more. But being a not so good student meant that I soon plummeted to the bottom of the grades at school especially when I began to lose whatever little interest I had as I neared my 8th grade. And by the time I reached my 10th grade, I was as good as lost to academics. The way I climbed back is quite epic in its proportions.
KB: That is why, I think your “Hero’s Journey,” starts in your 8th grade. Would you like to elaborate on that?
Dr. BSR: I think it starts a little earlier, in my 6th grade. I mean, if you take the “Hero’s Journey” as starting when the hero is quite contented and at peace with the ordinary world. In my 8th grade, I was in the state where I was all but lost and would have perished. So my journey starts a little earlier, at grade 6.
KB: Would you like to go over that a little?
Dr. BSR: Certainly, as it demonstrates how school begins to interfere in learning and is actually a great inhibitor of it. I am going to skip inessential details and focus on what I think are the really relevant points. At beginning of my 6th grade, I was full of enthusiasm for learning. I was a voracious reader and deeply interested in history, culture, science, space, world events…I read everything I could get my hands on, including the Amar Chitra Katha comics that were the major source of history and culture. And of course, of what I read in these comics, I tried to get hold of the original sources and followed them. I had already read there Ramayana and the Mahabharata recast by C Rajagopalachari and published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. And of course, I played several games like Cricket, Football, Badminton. My 6th grade passed on filled with great learning. In my 7th grade, I picked up roller skating and enjoyed it a great deal. I also cycled a lot and learned to drive a scooter and motorcycle. My 7th grade also passed filled with the joy of learning. I came at the top level in my 7th grade final examination that was in fact a public or board examination those times. And then came the inferno!
KB: What do you mean by the inferno?
Dr. BSR: And then came my 8th grade. I like to quote Dante here as that best captures what happened to me then.
"Midway in this way of life we are bound upon,I found myself in a dark woodwhere the right road was wholly lost and gone.Ay, me, how hard to speak of it,that rude and rough and stubborn forest!the mere breath of memory stirs the old fear in the blood.It is so bitter, it goes nigh to death;Yet there I gained such good, that, to convey The tale,I'll write what else I found therewith."
Yes, I will talk about it to convey the tale. So, after my 7th grade, I had to join the 8th grade that would be known as High School. Now, the same school I had studied till 7th continued through the high school also. Several people suggested to me to go to another school as that particular school was not supposed to be that good for high school. But I felt reluctant to do so. First of all, that school was quite near to my home. Secondly, I had come to the conclusion that no matter which school, there would be no freedom to learn. More so, a better school would have more restrictions. So I though it would be better to continue at the same school. Little did I know that that was my signing up to enter inferno! But actually, there was no better option. I think given my sense of independence, a better school would have been worse.
KB: What happened?
Dr. BSR: It all happened by a shock. As soon as I stepped into the 8th grade, I was shocked to see among my fellow classmates, many who looked very much older for 8th grade. I soon came to know that they had failed several times and were repeaters. These students had completely lost all interest in studies and were merely continuing at school to somehow pass through, some time in the future. I felt the atmosphere dull and heavy. I soon succumbed to the dulness and it began to affect even my time outside of school. Slowly, I strayed away from my voracious reading and learning outside of school. Little by little, I stopped going to the libraries. The only reading I continued was of comics that were not really enriching though in these too I absorbed certain ideals and values. However, the glorious awakening I had experienced in the two previous years began to fade. A thick darkness descended on me and I began to see the world in that light. By and by, my scores at school collapsed. By the end of my 8th grade, my class rank had gone down drastically! I was supposedly one of the worst students at school. No one could ever think of identifying me as the same one who was at the top level in the 7th grade.
KB: It seems unbelievable! Who that knows you, can ever imagine that you were in that situation once! They would rather think that you are perhaps exaggerating.
Dr. BSR: Well, the best way to dispel that is to take a look at my “10th grade monthly test notebook.” Here is an image of my first monthly test result in mathematics. If 5.5 out of 20 is not convincing enough, nothing will!
KB: But how did that happen?
Dr. BSR: Actually, even getting 5.5 out of 20 was a miracle for I did not have any idea of anything I wrote in that test. I did not know anything at all of the mathematics taught in that class. What little I wrote, I guessed blindly or perhaps took from another student’s paper. Yes, I had to resort even to that sometimes.
KB: So what did you do then? After obtaining 5.5 out of 20?
Dr. BSR: Around that time, I think, it was around two years since my 8th grade, - I had gotten fed up with being accused of all kinds of mischief I was not even responsible for, by the teachers. As you know, once the teachers identify a particular student as being notorious, they find it convenient to attribute anything and everything wrong to that student. Well, I had fallen into such a position. After a while, I felt it was enough. I couldn’t take it anymore. And somehow, I realised that the only way to get out of that terrible mess was to become a “good student.” And the way to become a good student was to study and study, in short become a very good rote learner. And so I set about to do that. I crammed up the class notes as best I could and tried to reproduce the material. But then, here, there intervened a miracle I had experienced in my 5th grade.
KB: What was that?
Dr. BSR: During my 5th grade I had observed a curious phenomenon. I was not much interested in what was happening at class and so I skipped my homework most off the time. I used to get to school a little earlier, and copy down from some friend or the other’s book. But strangely, after a while, this very copying, though it was supposedly mere rote learning, began to make sense to me. I began to understand the material, the logic, the reasoning etc. I was astonished. Now, during my 10th grade, I unconsciously repeated that process. So very soon, I actually began to understand the material. I was no longer a rote learner but a thinking student. You can see how this began to impact my marks in the next image, after a month from the previous one.
And the next after that,
And by this time I was getting quite confident as I was able to measure my progress. The teachers, however, instead of encouraging me, tried their best to discourage me by saying that in the next test I would get a zero and so on. But I had my own internal sense of progress by then and turned a deaf ear to their remarks and went on persisting and persevering.
At last, I reached what everyone though was impossible.
And without further ado, I should perhaps contrast these with my test results at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, exactly 10 years later…
And the next after that,
And by this time I was getting quite confident as I was able to measure my progress. The teachers, however, instead of encouraging me, tried their best to discourage me by saying that in the next test I would get a zero and so on. But I had my own internal sense of progress by then and turned a deaf ear to their remarks and went on persisting and persevering.
At last, I reached what everyone thought was impossible.
And without further ado, I should perhaps contrast these with my test results at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, exactly 10 years later…
KB: That was undoubtedly a portrayal of the Hero’s Journey. But as you usually point out, the significance of the Hero’s Journey lies precisely in its recognition of the Beginner’s Brain-Mind.
Dr. BSR: Exactly. The Hero’s Journey embodies the Beginner’s Brain-Mind. I think it ought to be called the Beginner’s Journey to draw attention to the fact that it is the peculiar combination of neuro-cognitive forces that makes it possible. The term ‘hero,’ is also not to be used to simply signify an act of daring or courage. That does not make it into a mono myth, something that has a powerful fascination in the human mind to become an archetype. Much of the hero’s journey has essentially to do with the Beginner’s Brain-Mind.
KB: But isn’t everyone a beginner at some time or the other?
Dr. BSR: Ah, not at all, not necessarily at all.
KB: But everyone begins sometime, don’t they?
Dr. BSR: No, everyone don’t begin. In fact the term ‘beginning,’ itself needs to be qualified in the light of neuroscience and neuroplasticity.
KB: That’s quite a revelation to me.
Dr. BSR: When I mean that everyone isn’t necessarily a beginner even though they may begin at some stage, what I mean is this: The Beginner’s Brain-Mind is there potentially in everyone. But it does not actualise itself naturally. That, to a great extent, depends on the environment. The environment may be conducive or subversive. In the majority of cases, in most people in fact, the beginner’s brain-mind remains dormant, diminishes with age and vanishes without a trace. In the few, whether by dint fo a conducive environment or by their embarking on the ‘Hero’s Journey,’ it awakens and actualises itself.
KB: You are saying that the Beginner’s Brain-Mind depends on the Hero’s Journey to actualise itself?
Dr. BSR: Yes, either that or as I mentioned, the support of a conducive environment.
KB: It is all beginning to make sense now. The Hero’s Journey is then enormously significant. How then has it not received the attention it deserves?
Dr. BSR: Because it is most often not recognised for what it is, an indispensable condition for the Beginner’s Brain-Mind to awaken and actualise itself. And the Beginner’s Brain-Mind, in turn, is a necessary, through not sufficient condition, for all creative endeavours.
KB: The Beginner’s Brain-Mind is a necessary condition? What then is the sufficient condition?
Dr. BSR: That depends on several factors as has best been outlined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyiin his book, ‘Creativity.’ Essentially, creativity is a triple, -the domain, the field and the individual. And in each of this the necessary condition actually plays a role.
KB: You mean the necessary condition is intertwined with the sufficient condition? That they are not independent?
Dr. BSR: Yes, it is more of a non-linear dependence. And that makes it enormously complex.
KB: No wonder conventional education so bungles up when it comes to creativity.
Dr. BSR: Yes, trying to ensure one could adversely affect the other.
KB: You are implying that for example, the Beginner’s Brain-Mind plays a role in each of the creativity triple, - the domain, the field and the individual?
Dr. BSR: It certainly does. The neuro-cognitive state of the beginner dramatically determines each component of the creativity triple.
KB: Why don’t you illustrate it by your own example.
Dr. BSR: So, as I mentioned, I had to first arrive at a stage where I could embark on the Beginner’s Journey. Filled with the confidence of having survived the academic challenge after my 10th grade, I entered into my 11th grade. I no longer did the mistake of depending on the educational system for my learning. I started out on my own in learning all that I needed to and then I wanted to. During the 11th and 12th grades, I laid for myself a strong foundation in physics and mathematics. With this preparation I felt a great pull towards physics and mathematics. At that time, the usual advice was to go into engineering. Also there were no better options. Even today, in India, the three-year Bachelors degree program is grossly inadequate for any kind of serious career. So I joined Mechanical Engineering with an intent to continue to learn physics and mathematics on my own. At this stage, I had become independent of the system and it did not really matter whether I was officially doing engineering or science or anything for that matter. Even Chandrasekhar’s advice to his brother did not deter me as I had, in the previous two years, gone through such difficult times that I could learn under any circumstances whatsoever.
KB: What was the advice of Chandrasekhar to his brother that you are referring to? It would make more sense if you shared that.
Dr. BSR: As I was also having a dilemma with the whole world against me in my pursuit of theoretical physics when I was actually enrolled in engineering, I drew support and inspiration from many a biography of great scientists. Einstein’s biography by Abraham Pais, ‘Subtle is the Lord,’ was the first and foremost. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar’s by Kameshwar Wali, ‘Chandra’, was another. I have written out certain paragraphs from this book. Here, let me read it out.
"...A mind at 17 can certainly be worked into any particular frame, but the heart, the inner craving to satisfy certain ideals, if it is deep-seated, can never be shaken and should not be shaken. I wonder if you know this -when I was in the fifth form or later, I used to go to the beach and pray -to mold my life like that of an Einstein or a Riemann. However shameful and miserable my progress has been -that it is- my personal aspirations were there. When I was asked to take physics in preference to mathematics, I did so because I knew that my inner aspirations were left untouched by the choice..."
"What is essential, however, is to have the ideal of gaining knowledge and to work steadfastly towards the ideal. One should not care to worry about what happens. One must lay sound foundations, one must have enough enthusiasm, one must have a passion, one must be filled by the joy of study. That is enough. Age does not matter. It is never too late to begin..."
KB: There is quite a lot in what you read. There is so much of the beginner’s brain-mind in it, perhaps I should say, the beginner’s heart!
Dr. BSR: Yes, that’s appropriate. But as the emotions belong to the sector of the social-emotional mammalian-mind brain, it could be subsumed in the purview of the brain-mind itself. But literally, now that you mentioned the heart, let me read out Chandrasekhar’s words further. He writes to his brother, Balakrishnan,
"...if your heart yearns after a scholarly career, then the gates of knowledge are as much -if not more- open to you as to anybody else who happened- just happened- to get a better start -according to the onlooker's impressions...In your choice of Medicine or Arts the essential point to discriminate is as to whether by this choice you do not damage your inner feelings and aspirations...if your aspirations are deep-seated, do not on any account damage them or molest them.”
"...it is important to recognize that choosing one of two different subjects in the arts course is essentially- fundamentally -different from choosing either the "arts" or the "technical course." For instance, to choose Physics or Mathematics is not the same as choosing between Medicine and Physics, or Engineering and Mathematics. Physics and Mathematics will make one pursue the same ideal. Physics and Medicine will not enable one to pursue the same ideal. Hence choosing Physics or Mathematics is choosing one of two paths towards the same ideal. Choosing Physics or Medicine is choosing one of two essentially dissimilar ideals.”
KB: This paragraph also contains what you were about to say regarding the choice of engineering or science. You said that it did not matter which you were in formally, despite Chandrasekhar’s advice to his brother.
Dr. BSR: Yes, this paragraph precisely sums up what I wanted to convey. To me, learning had already become a purely personal, a purely individual calling. What I did outwardly had nothing to do with my calling. After all, people pursue so many things in life, sports, games, music and so on. Why cannot one pursue their calling? This was my point of view and later on, over the years, became my credo. Which domains I pursued had nothing to do with what anyone thought. That is why, in our founding CFRCE, Pratiti B R and myself so organised it that we would never, ever, depend on funding, grants, donations or any form of external patronage that could compromise the fiercely independent nature of its functioning. But more about this later.
KB: We could come back to the role of the Beginner’s Brain-Mind in impacting the creativity triple.
Dr. BSR: Yes, in my own case, my beginner’s brain-mind had first to encounter the domains of theoretical physics and mathematics. From the beginner’s perspective, I felt enthralled by the quest. Nothing in life had ever lifted me to the heights I now began to experience day after day, night after night. More appropriately, I felt catapulted to a state that was beyond both happiness and unhappiness in the sense that it was so unmixed and so far removed from any earthly stimulation. From that height I tried to find meaning and give expression to my feelings. Now, no ordinary language appeared to be of help. As I groped about, I began to realise the role of great poetry and literature in nurturing the emotions.
KB: And why is that? Why do we have to nurture the emotions?
Dr. BSR: It is part of the evolutionary purpose, evolution in the sense of ordered complexity in an individual organism and not that of Darwnian evolution of populations.
KB: So, how did you find such support in great poetry, literature and music?
Dr. BSR: I suddenly felt moved towards poetry for the very first time in my life. Prior to that I had never liked poetry, felt bored with it. But now, instinctively, I began to seek verses, to look for poems that somehow matched the emotions I was experiencing.
KB: Which were those?
Dr. BSR: I can best describe the emotions by quoting the poems and verses I liked most. Take for example, Shelly’s ‘Alastor or The Spirit of Solitude,’
"By solemn vision, and bright silver dream,His infancy was nurtured. Every sightAnd sound from the vast earth and ambient air,Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.The fountains of divine philosophyFled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,Or good, or lovely, which the sacred pastIn truth or fable consecrates, he feltAnd knew…”
This was one of my favourites, to give expression to the reverence and awe I felt for Nature. And then, there was also from Keats, ‘Endymion,’
"Wherein lies happiness? In that which becksOur ready minds to fellowship divine,A fellowship with essence; till we shine,Full alchemiz’d, and free of space."
KB: This is quite unusual. But as you point out, the beginner’s brain-mind subsumes the heart and emotions as well. What role do emotions have in it?
Dr. BSR: The beginner’s brain-mind is primed for and to express the primary learning emotions of curiosity, surprise, wonder, awe and mystery. Nurturing these emotions intensify the firing of the BDNF. Poetry, literature, music and all forms of artistic creation that appeal to the individual support and enhance it. Let me quote one of my favourites from Shakespeare’s King Henry VIII.
“Orpheus with his lute made trees,And the mountain tops that freeze,Bow themselves when he did sing:To his music plants and flowersEver sprung; as sun and showersThere had made a lasting spring.Every thing that heard him play,Even the billows of the sea,Hung their heads, and then lay by.In sweet music is such art,Killing care and grief of heartFall asleep, or hearing, die.”
KB: What were your accompanying thoughts in theoretical physics and mathematics?
Dr. BSR: My first great epiphany was when I solved Einstein’s field equations and obtained the Schwarzschild solution. This left me in a state of euphoria for months. I went back again and again to the calculations unable to let go of the grand serenity I experienced. I could not believe such great beauty was to be found in mathematical work in theoretical physics. I had done these calculations from the classical Tensor Calculus methods. I now mastered the modern Calculus of Differential Forms and the Cartan structure equations and approached the Schwarzschild solution from these novel methods. This took me to even greater heights of enthralment. After a few more lingerings in these methods I took on a grander project: that of solving for the Kerr Metric. And of course, I encountered Chandreshekar’s beautiful article, “The Kerr Metric and its Perturbations,” in Hawking and Israel’s ‘Einstein Centenary Survey,’ and his “The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes.” These were some of the most beautiful experiences I had. And As you know, Chandrasekhar was one who had an incredibly developed aesthetic sense. No wonder I could easily identify with his writings in his “Truth and Beauty.”
KB: So, aesthetics play a significant role in the beginner’s brain-mind?
Dr. BSR: Absolutely. And this is another oversight of the educational system. It places emotions in the domain of the Humanities as if the emotional brain-mind is so exclusive from the thinking brain-mind.
KB: What about people like Dirac who could not appreciate poetry?
Dr. BSR: It need not always have to be poetry or literature. Sometimes one derives the emotional nourishment from the particular domain itself. Dirac was one such physicist to whom mathematical beauty was intrinsic and he did not need the support of any other domain to give expression to his feelings. But those like Robert Oppenheimer and Hermann Weyl did draw freely upon other domains.
KB: In several of your talks on you have usually referred to Cartan’s work. Would you like to elaborate on it a little?
Dr. BSR: Yes, I have always held a deep sense of reverence for Elie Cartan’s works. I think it is more because I encountered his works with the beginner’s brain-mind! I mean, in the beginning of my involvement in Differential Geometry.
KB: How did you begin your studies in Differential Geometry that steered you towards aesthetic beauty in mathematics?
Dr. BSR: Let me recall…it all began because of Abraham Pais’s biography of Einstein, ‘Subtle of the Lord.’ As I read this book, I made sure to learn everything mentioned in it, in a technical manner. After mastering General Relativity, I read on Einstein’s attempts at his Unified Field Theory. In that section I encountered the term Differential Geometry for the very first time and was intrigued. At that time I looked up books on the topic. I soon got hold of T J Wilmore’s ‘Introduction to Differential Geometry,’ and learned the material. But this did not seem that exciting. I then came across his other book, ’Total Curvature in Riemannian Geometry.’ I started reading it. It turned out to be not easy reading but very beautiful and soon, I became familiar with the topics. In that book, Wilmore mentions the serious books on Differential Geometry as Sigurdur Helgason’s ‘Differential Geometry, Lie Groups and Symmetric Spaces,’ and Kobayashi and Nomizu’s ‘Foundations of Differential Geometry, Vols 1 and 2.’ I had to wait for five months to get hold of these books. Both these books opened up Elie Cartan’s methods to me and I was enthralled. Helgason’s book especially takes the reader along Elie Cartan’s magnificent work on the classification theory of semi-simple Lie algebras. After this I pursued this topic in depth from other sources. All this had great aesthetic beauty. And this continued over into my study of Gauge Theories, especially culminating in the beautiful book by G ‘Hooft, ‘Under the Spell of the Gauge Principle.’ I think my beginner’s brain-mind got tuned to the highest as I was working through these books. After that I read his other books, ’Manifolds with an Affine Connection and the Theory of General Relativity,’ and ‘Riemannian Geometry in an Orthogonal Frame.’ But the finest treatment of Cartan’s work I found later in Sharpe’s book, ‘Differential Geometry, Cartan’s Generalization of Klein’s Erlangen Program’. Of course, G Sardanishvily and his school take Cartan’s work much further in their series of beautiful books that also go into Multisymplectic Geometry.
KB: Is aesthetic beauty so significant in mathematics and theoretical physics?
Dr. BSR: Yes, certainly. Most people think when the mathematicians and physicists are referring to aesthetics, it is just a stirring of emotions. No doubt it is a stirring of emotions but it is not that alone. It is a deep calling from within the core of one’s being. To many a mathematician and physicist, it is a primary driving force. But the difference from someone who sees beauty in only certain particular forms and those who see it essentially in all forms and draw upon descriptions from several fields is that these few people glimpse beauty in its wholeness and manifoldness and in expressing it, are forced to cast it in particular coordinate charts, to speak as it were. Of course, there is this distinction between those who are technically adept and those who are not. The Poet may not be able to see mathematical beauty but the mathematician can see poetic beauty.
KB: Returning to the topic of the beginner’s brain-mind, how does it impact the field and the individual?
Dr. BSR: That would be a discussion in its own right.
KB: Then, perhaps we can pause for now.
