Two Faces of Beauty

Science and art are both manifestations of beauty and creativity. As mankind has evolved intellectually and socially and as science has progressed, artistic creations by humans have tended towards increasing harmony with nature and they have become more abstract -- like mathematics, which is the abstraction of all sciences. The authors of this unusual work postulate some critical ideas on science, art and aesthetics, and establish that we need both, a scientific temper and the temper of art. Evidence to support these theses is drawn from mathematics, physics, studies in molecular biology, and also from music, fine art and design. Readers are taken through lucid prose with the help of illustrations of natural phenomenon such as spiral galaxies, spider web, the Fibonacci series and fractals in lightning, and of products of human creativity such as paintings of masters like Picasso, Husain and Escher, musical pieces, textile fragments and Ajanta caves frescoes.