Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science

by Roald Hoffmann, Iain Boyd Whyte

Throughout its long history, and not just as the key aesthetic category for the Romantic Movement, the sublime has created the necessary link between aesthetic and moral judgment, offering the prospect of transcending the limits of measurement, even imagination. The best of science makes genuine claims to the sublime. For in science, as in art, every day brings the entirely new, the extreme, and the unrepresentable. How does one depict negative mass, for example, or the folding of a protein that is contagious? Can one capture emergent phenomena as they emerge? Science is continually faced with describing that which is beyond.

This book, through contributions from nine prominent scholars, tackles that challenge. The explorations within Beyond the Finite range from the images taken by the Hubble Telescope to David Bohm's quantum romanticism, from Kant and Burke to a "downward spiraling infinity" of the 21st century sublime, all lucid yet transcendent. Squarely positioned at the interface between science and art, this volume's chapters capture a remarkable variety of perspectives, with neuroscience, chemistry, astronomy, physics, film, painting and music discussed in relation to the sublime experience, topics surely to peak the interest of academics and students studying the sublime in various disciplines.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Art

208 pages, Hardcover

First published February 9, 2011

About the author

Roald Hoffmann (born Roald Safran; July 18, 1937) is an American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus, at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York.

Hoffmann graduated in 1955 from New York City's Stuyvesant High School, where he won a Westinghouse science scholarship. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Columbia University (Columbia College) in 1958. He earned his Master of Arts degree in 1960 from Harvard University. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Harvard University while working under direction of subsequent 1976 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner William Lipscomb. Under Lipscomb's direction the Extended Hückel method was developed by Lawrence Lohr and by Roald Hoffmann. This method was later extended by Hoffmann. He went to Cornell in 1965 and has remained there, becoming professor emeritus.

Hoffmann has investigated both organic and inorganic substances, developing computational tools and methods such as the extended Hückel method, which he proposed in 1963.

He also developed, with Robert Burns Woodward, rules for elucidating reaction mechanisms (the Woodward–Hoffmann rules). He also introduced the isolobal principle.

In 1981, Hoffmann received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he shared with Kenichi Fukui "for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions".

Other awards:

Priestley Medal (1990)
Arthur C. Cope Award in Organic Chemistry
Organic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1969
Inorganic Chemistry Award (American Chemical Society), 1982
Pimentel Award in Chemical Education (1996)
Award in Pure Chemistry
Monsanto Award
Literaturpreis of the Verband der Chemischen Industrie for his textbook The Same and Not The Same (1997)
National Medal of Science
National Academy of Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow
American Philosophical Society Fellow
Kolos Medal
Foreign Member, Royal Society
Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Harvard Centennial Medalist
James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry

Hoffmann is member of the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science and is a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

In August 2007, the American Chemical Society held a symposium at its biannual national meeting to honor Hoffmann's 70th birthday. He also has served as a consultant with Eli Lilly and Company, a global pharmaceutical corporation.

Reviews

[Michael Fong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent break into the sublime

I chose this book in hopes that it would expand on the idea of the sublime but it actually offer something different and provide many readings to look into. this book isn't so much about going in depth but more of a survey of the schools of thought on the sublime. a good read if you found Burke and Kant a bit too esoteric. this will provide some context to go back into them later.

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent collection of essays covering different perspectives on the sublime in science and art. From historical overviews, to the 'prettiness' of Hubble's images needed to grab the general public, to arguments why the notion of the sublime should be retired, to David Bohm's quantum romanticism, and parallels between the sublime and the uncanny in automatons. Not all of them are read-worthy, but some of them i might go back to in the future.

[Eli Brooke]

recalled, but i hadn't been reading it anyway