Exploring the Arts & Humanities through Physics
Story by Amy J. Elias
What on earth (or beyond it) do physics and the humanities have in common? A lot more than you’d expect! In October of 2023, the Denbo Center collaborated with the UT Department of Physics and Astronomy and staff from the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to host a series of public events exploring the intersection between physics, the arts, and the humanities. Events included discussions about how hard science can be infused into science fiction and how physics can create new forms of electronic music on the dance floor—as well as disciplinary discussions about upgrades to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The Large Hadron Collider lies 100 meters below the Swiss-French border and leads the world in the search to uncover what the universe is made of, how it was formed, and what fate may lie in store for it.
The week-long event was hosted by Associate Professor Larry Lee, an award-winning teacher in UT’s department of physics as well as a scientist at CERN. He is also an electronic music composer and DJ who goes by the name of ColliderScope.
The Denbo Center underwrote a visit by Lucy Caldwell, a Northern Irish playwright and novelist who was the winner of the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award and of the 2023 Walter Scott Prize, and who also was a contributor to a short-story collection published by CERN in 2023. That collection—Collision: Stories from the Science of CERN—was edited by Connie Potter and Rob Applby and paired fiction writers such as Steven Moffat with CERN physicists to create stories about CERN discoveries, from interstellar travel using quantum tunnelling to first contact with antimatter aliens. The collection, noted Potter, was meant to translate CERN’s work into language and scenarios that could excite public readers, and it was featured in The Guardian’s best science fiction round-up of 2023.
The Denbo Center arranged for Caldwell to fly to Knoxville and join the team to present their collection at Nashville’s Southern Festival of Books, as well as to be part of a panel on campus featuring Potter, Appleby, and physics professor Sean Lindsay, who uses science fiction stories to teach his astronomy classes at UT. Caldwell and Appleby also discussed the book with a public audience at Union Ave Books in Knoxville, and the Denbo Center organized a dinner that included Caldwell, the CERN team, Lee and other UT physicists, and UT creative writers. Lee also organized a sonic performance at OPAC in downtown Knoxville featuring sets by ColliderScope and Appleby (Superposition).
The events will lead to future collaborations between the Denbo Center, CERN. and the Department of Physics as they explore arts-sciences intersections and dialogues.