Science is simply the study of the innate beauty within all form and all life.

Science is Beauty

Beauty is Science.

“Are you studying the sciences or the arts?” is a common question for those who attend university. Two very different types of people it would seem, not very conducive to mixing and generally at odds with each other. ‘Science is factual, dry, uncreative and methodical. Science is for boys, science is for nerds, and science is boring’. ‘The arts are irrational, not particularly useful and not very logical. The arts are difficult to define, beyond anything mathematical or measurable, and purely for those who are essentially avoiding 'real' life’.

Yes, a huge generalisation in the paragraph above. And there are many exceptions, and many who do manage to converge these two realms. Yet it is true, science is certainly not perceived as very sexy, or very beautiful. This is sad. This is sad because the very origin of science, the very essence of true science, is beauty. Beauty you ask?

Let's have a look at beauty . . . let’s delve a little into what beauty is, what it means and what makes something beauty-full. We can use the human face as an example – there have been many studies looking at people's perceptions of what makes a beautiful face. When analysed we discover that 'beautiful faces' have all sorts of mathematical and geometrical proportions, symmetries and relationships. In other words, when a face has certain mathematical alignments between the different parts it is appealing to the eye. And so, could we say that the beauty of a human face could actually be defined mathematically? It would seem so. This can also be seen in nature: mountains of certain proportions appeal to the eye, as do trees with certain branching patterns, in fact, the whole of Mother Nature specialises in creating beautiful and harmonising patterns and arrangements.

Could it be that all things beautiful, all art, all design, could actually be explored from a scientific angle, and could actually be defined by science?

The very thought of this is quite challenging to our belief that 'the arts' are somehow 'beyond' definition, or outside of the realms of scientific analysis. Yet actually, it is not an insult to the arts to have the sciences embrace them. In fact, the arts have science at their core, for science is harmony, is balance, is all about relationship, and all about appreciating the make-up of the amazingness around us. A true scientist is in-love with the nuts and bolts of life, of our universe, and how all those nuts and bolts fit together. Just as a mechanic has an appreciation for each and every part of an engine, and whose role it is to bring all those parts into harmony, so too does the scientist appreciate each part of the whole, gaining an understanding of how it all works together and touching on the magic of how it all came into being.

If I were to choose a series of Planets that epitomised what Science is (from an astrological perspective), I would probably choose Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Venus offers harmony, making mathematics and order respond to its confirming composure. Venus encapsulates the concepts of harmony, of relationship in its confirmation phases and thus it offers order and balance to the mechanics of universal movements. Venus would ask that an equation be balanced, that the particles form right and true relationship, that rhythm and order be maintained and harmonised according to the laws of nature, the laws of the universe.

Next are Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter impulses forth the laws, order, and synchronises the parts within the whole. As Venus has its own radiation of beauty, love, art and all things in their repose movement, so too does Jupiter offer beauty in strength, eternal bonding love and art through industry, right machinery and forms of transport.

Then there is Saturn. Saturn is the interlinking and the interspersing of all form in relationship, it is the form of systems and interweaving between all things that cannot but essentially relate.

And finally there is Mars. This planet offers true motion or True Movement. It is the movement of advance or evolution in accordance to the pull of Jupiter, and both in relationship with Sirius.

It is appealing how these planets encapsulate such a broad spectrum of correspondence, an interdependent grand movement that can be likened to a gigantic dance or symphony but also a grand science of order and detailed cooperativeness.

Yet if we begin to see science as beauty, then we can begin to see why qualities such as love and collaboration can sit beside those of mechanical order and systematic law. Indeed, science is beauty. Science is simply the study of the innate beauty within all form and all life. A true scientist will naturally fall in love with all that he/she studies, for the true scientist is traversing the realms of God's artworks. And if science is beauty, then beauty must indeed be science.

And so, all that we see as beauty, all the dance, the form, the sound, the art of this world can actually be seen through the eyes of science, can be explored through the means of analysis, through observation and understanding. And these processes actually add to our appreciation of this beauty rather that destroying it, as the myth of our culture perpetuates.

When the eye of the scientist delves deeper into beauty, great levels of beauty are almost certainly found.

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  • By Paul O'Hara, BSc (Zoology , Biology), DipSecTchg(Science)


  • Photography: Clayton Lloyd