this is me!! I absolutely loved this, as someone who is deeply interested in chemistry, I am also a creative at heart being a writer and a painter. I often struggle to find people like this as I currently am doing majorly STEM within my studies, but I paint, draw and read and write on here during my free time. the bridging of these two sides is ultimately what will create the innovators, and creative thinkers needed to fuel discoveries. thank you for this insightful piece <3
thank you so much for sharing this. i’ve felt that too, it can be hard to find people who hold both sides at once. i also love chemistry, and i actually read your article sasha, “how has the chemistry of chirality redefined modern pharmaceuticals?” and i loved it so much, please do more. bridging chemistry with creativity is exactly what leads to new ways of thinking, and i really believe that’s where innovation comes from. thank you for such a thoughtful comment and trusting me with your time<3
thanks so much for reading my piece ! I feel like it’s really hard to get a lot of readers for chemistry as people can’t usually be bothered to read, thank sos much because I def needed the encouragement x
thank you so much, that’s such a beautiful way to put it. i really believe we need both to make sense of the world, so i’m glad the piece reflected that for you 🤍🤍
wow. I loved this so much. I’ve been reading your essays for a while and they always shift my perspective on things and make me think.
this one in particular as I’ve always been labelled as the “creative one” or “the writer” and it’s made me feel less smart, like I can’t do the other things.
This maps very closely to my own path. I studied arts and sciences, then drifted into machine learning, and the only way it made sense was to stop treating “art vs science” as a real boundary. The same habits of pattern-hunting and structural thinking I used writing about Shostakovich are what I lean on now when I debug a model.
I like that you frame the divide as institutional rather than neurological. The brain does not care whether it is modelling a proof or a phrase; schools and career ladders do.
thank you for taking the time to share your own path Lucas, i’m the same honestly. moving between art and science only started to make sense when i stopped treating them like separate worlds. and thank you for taking the time to comment, i really appreciate it. , i’ll have to check out shostakovich now.
"We should give ourselves permission to move between science and art, to combine ways of knowing, and to learn from people who think differently from us. Neither science nor art is superior; each offers a vital perspective on the world. And when they inform one another, our collective understanding becomes fuller and more capable of addressing the complexity around us."
This was such a eloquent illustration of your point. Art and science are meant to not only coexist, but to synthesize.
i really appreciate the way you framed it as synthesis rather than just coexistence. i think there’s something important in allowing the tension and dialogue between art and science, not just blending them seamlessly, because that’s often where new ways of understanding emerge. i’m really glad that came through in the piece. i really appreciate you taking the time to read and engage so thoughtfully.
thank you for sharing this. for me it didn’t always feel that way at first proofs and programming felt very rigid initially, but over time i started to see the creative layer underneath
This is such an elegant piece. I think the fact that similar brain regions are activated when doing artistic vs analytical tasks is a really strong way to demonstrate your point. When I was a kid, I would write little stories about hard STEM concepts I learned about in school to help me process them better. Anyways, really resonated with your words 💌
thank you so much. this really means a lot, and i agree that the overlap in neural activation is such a clear way to illustrate the point especially in regions like the prefrontal cortex and default mode network that support both problem solving and imaginative thinking. i actually researched this in my own work, and it’s fascinating how similar the neural patterns are.
one of the most beautiful topic ever, especially for me, as someone who had to pick between the two (philosophy vs astrophysics, which led me to pick something entirely different from the two).
the separation of arts and sciences is propaganda. science without humanities is more profitable, when stripped from the ethics. it led to the worst products in history.
and still, they keep co-existing and connecting themselves. artists study anatomy and use the fibonacci sequence in their composition. scientists write poetry to explain their results and god, what would be science today without illustrations used to study for centuries?
it is of no wonder that they were put into the same category for hundreds of years.
having to choose between philosophy and astrophysics is such a real and heavy crossroads, and there’s so much pressure to treat it as an either/or when it rarely feels that way internally. i agree that the separation often serves institutional and economic interests more than intellectual ones, though i also think it grew out of historical moments where specialisation felt necessary. i love the examples you gave. thank you for such a thoughtful reflection and for trusting me with your time and vulnerability to share your own story. i hope i see you again around here!
really great stuff teodora! i have always loved writing and math, and people act like that’s weird. i love this essay and how it connects those worlds. both art and science/math are ways of making sense of the world!
thank you so much my sweetheart caroline <3 for me it was definitely only later that i started enjoying math, but now i see the connection between them so clearly. i’m really glad the essay resonated with you.
This was so real!! I have always been very creative with an artist soul but I’m also a very logical person by nature and I’m fairly good with science and numbers! I think that’s why I chose to be an architect, it’s the best mixture of both I know.
This was a very insightful read, thank you for sharing!!
Thank you for trusting me with your time! Architecture is beautiful, I’m so glad you are in a field that lets you explores both sides!! For me I think I started with a rocky foundation in science but ended up loving it🥰
I really appreciated the research you put into the piece (that also cemented your core thesis), and you fully had me at the Hedy cover art. Thank you for writing!
Most brilliant minds were mostly renaissances minds. Multidisciplinary people who find value and pleasure in learning and document their knowledge. I loved your post
When I was a kid I was *awful* at math (still am, let’s be honest) but I always dreamed about working at NASA, being an astronaut, studying the stars, or going on adventures to find new scientific discoveries. My more “natural” proclivities for the arts however (shaped by the fact I was allowed/encouraged to draw since I was hold enough to hold a pencil) eventually drew me towards a career on the arts side of the spectrum (creative & professional writing). While I love everything that career path gave me, part of me always wishes I was given more of a chance to improve my mathematical skills. Reading your amazing article reminds me that perhaps that was simply the structure of society at the time.
“She’s good at writing and art and stuff, she’ll be fine.”
Next year I’m going back to uni to study psychology, and I’m excited to study something which aligns a little more with that little girl inside me who loves the idea of science
thank you so much for sharing this. i really felt it. i was also bad at math and programming for a long time, and i ended up in a path where i do both anyway. it took time, patience, and a lot of unlearning the idea that being “good at art” meant i couldn’t grow in science. i love that you’re going back to study psychology it feels like such a beautiful way of reconnecting with that curious part of yourself. i’m really glad the piece resonated with you, and i’m wishing you so much joy in this next chapter.
Always welcome x thank you again for sharing and I’m glad that as we get older we’re allowing ourselves to let go of those pieces of ourselves that said we couldn’t do it x
this is me!! I absolutely loved this, as someone who is deeply interested in chemistry, I am also a creative at heart being a writer and a painter. I often struggle to find people like this as I currently am doing majorly STEM within my studies, but I paint, draw and read and write on here during my free time. the bridging of these two sides is ultimately what will create the innovators, and creative thinkers needed to fuel discoveries. thank you for this insightful piece <3
thank you so much for sharing this. i’ve felt that too, it can be hard to find people who hold both sides at once. i also love chemistry, and i actually read your article sasha, “how has the chemistry of chirality redefined modern pharmaceuticals?” and i loved it so much, please do more. bridging chemistry with creativity is exactly what leads to new ways of thinking, and i really believe that’s where innovation comes from. thank you for such a thoughtful comment and trusting me with your time<3
thanks so much for reading my piece ! I feel like it’s really hard to get a lot of readers for chemistry as people can’t usually be bothered to read, thank sos much because I def needed the encouragement x
we would not exist without science nor without art. you explain it perfectly 🤍🤍
thank you so much, that’s such a beautiful way to put it. i really believe we need both to make sense of the world, so i’m glad the piece reflected that for you 🤍🤍
wow. I loved this so much. I’ve been reading your essays for a while and they always shift my perspective on things and make me think.
this one in particular as I’ve always been labelled as the “creative one” or “the writer” and it’s made me feel less smart, like I can’t do the other things.
This maps very closely to my own path. I studied arts and sciences, then drifted into machine learning, and the only way it made sense was to stop treating “art vs science” as a real boundary. The same habits of pattern-hunting and structural thinking I used writing about Shostakovich are what I lean on now when I debug a model.
I like that you frame the divide as institutional rather than neurological. The brain does not care whether it is modelling a proof or a phrase; schools and career ladders do.
thank you for taking the time to share your own path Lucas, i’m the same honestly. moving between art and science only started to make sense when i stopped treating them like separate worlds. and thank you for taking the time to comment, i really appreciate it. , i’ll have to check out shostakovich now.
"We should give ourselves permission to move between science and art, to combine ways of knowing, and to learn from people who think differently from us. Neither science nor art is superior; each offers a vital perspective on the world. And when they inform one another, our collective understanding becomes fuller and more capable of addressing the complexity around us."
This was such a eloquent illustration of your point. Art and science are meant to not only coexist, but to synthesize.
i really appreciate the way you framed it as synthesis rather than just coexistence. i think there’s something important in allowing the tension and dialogue between art and science, not just blending them seamlessly, because that’s often where new ways of understanding emerge. i’m really glad that came through in the piece. i really appreciate you taking the time to read and engage so thoughtfully.
In my own experience writing proofs and programming are both very creative
thank you for sharing this. for me it didn’t always feel that way at first proofs and programming felt very rigid initially, but over time i started to see the creative layer underneath
This is such an elegant piece. I think the fact that similar brain regions are activated when doing artistic vs analytical tasks is a really strong way to demonstrate your point. When I was a kid, I would write little stories about hard STEM concepts I learned about in school to help me process them better. Anyways, really resonated with your words 💌
thank you so much. this really means a lot, and i agree that the overlap in neural activation is such a clear way to illustrate the point especially in regions like the prefrontal cortex and default mode network that support both problem solving and imaginative thinking. i actually researched this in my own work, and it’s fascinating how similar the neural patterns are.
one of the most beautiful topic ever, especially for me, as someone who had to pick between the two (philosophy vs astrophysics, which led me to pick something entirely different from the two).
the separation of arts and sciences is propaganda. science without humanities is more profitable, when stripped from the ethics. it led to the worst products in history.
and still, they keep co-existing and connecting themselves. artists study anatomy and use the fibonacci sequence in their composition. scientists write poetry to explain their results and god, what would be science today without illustrations used to study for centuries?
it is of no wonder that they were put into the same category for hundreds of years.
having to choose between philosophy and astrophysics is such a real and heavy crossroads, and there’s so much pressure to treat it as an either/or when it rarely feels that way internally. i agree that the separation often serves institutional and economic interests more than intellectual ones, though i also think it grew out of historical moments where specialisation felt necessary. i love the examples you gave. thank you for such a thoughtful reflection and for trusting me with your time and vulnerability to share your own story. i hope i see you again around here!
really great stuff teodora! i have always loved writing and math, and people act like that’s weird. i love this essay and how it connects those worlds. both art and science/math are ways of making sense of the world!
thank you so much my sweetheart caroline <3 for me it was definitely only later that i started enjoying math, but now i see the connection between them so clearly. i’m really glad the essay resonated with you.
This was so real!! I have always been very creative with an artist soul but I’m also a very logical person by nature and I’m fairly good with science and numbers! I think that’s why I chose to be an architect, it’s the best mixture of both I know.
This was a very insightful read, thank you for sharing!!
Thank you for trusting me with your time! Architecture is beautiful, I’m so glad you are in a field that lets you explores both sides!! For me I think I started with a rocky foundation in science but ended up loving it🥰
I love that for you!!! And I very much enjoyed this essay, thank you for sharing it to the world!!!
I really appreciated the research you put into the piece (that also cemented your core thesis), and you fully had me at the Hedy cover art. Thank you for writing!
the research was important to me in grounding the argument, thank you for taking the time to read and comment <3
Most brilliant minds were mostly renaissances minds. Multidisciplinary people who find value and pleasure in learning and document their knowledge. I loved your post
i’m really glad you enjoyed the post, thank you for reading and commenting.
"Long before logic confirms a direction, intuition suggests one". Bruh, beautifully written - obsessed with your writing!!
i’m really happy it resonated. i really appreciate the love and you reading my work.i hope you'll come back for more
When I was a kid I was *awful* at math (still am, let’s be honest) but I always dreamed about working at NASA, being an astronaut, studying the stars, or going on adventures to find new scientific discoveries. My more “natural” proclivities for the arts however (shaped by the fact I was allowed/encouraged to draw since I was hold enough to hold a pencil) eventually drew me towards a career on the arts side of the spectrum (creative & professional writing). While I love everything that career path gave me, part of me always wishes I was given more of a chance to improve my mathematical skills. Reading your amazing article reminds me that perhaps that was simply the structure of society at the time.
“She’s good at writing and art and stuff, she’ll be fine.”
Next year I’m going back to uni to study psychology, and I’m excited to study something which aligns a little more with that little girl inside me who loves the idea of science
thank you so much for sharing this. i really felt it. i was also bad at math and programming for a long time, and i ended up in a path where i do both anyway. it took time, patience, and a lot of unlearning the idea that being “good at art” meant i couldn’t grow in science. i love that you’re going back to study psychology it feels like such a beautiful way of reconnecting with that curious part of yourself. i’m really glad the piece resonated with you, and i’m wishing you so much joy in this next chapter.
Always welcome x thank you again for sharing and I’m glad that as we get older we’re allowing ourselves to let go of those pieces of ourselves that said we couldn’t do it x
So perfectly articulated. Thank you for this piece!
thank you griffin! i’m happy the idea came across clearly. writing this felt really meaningful to me.
Wow this is so interesting and so so good seriouslyyy
thank you so much eva! i’m really glad it resonated with you, it brings me so much joy
Anyone who writes like that seriously has a talenttt