Visual Order in Visual Art and Visual Representations in Science

On the Meaning of Order (Ill) 313 apostles has given rise to many circular church windows with pseudo three- and four-fold symmetry (three and four are factors of twelve), which establish a mood of restfulness and permanence; Chartres Cathedral has one of the finest examples. But what of motion at the molecular level?Does nature abandon symmetry or does it distort symmetrical structures so that they reach a point of disequilibrium with resulting motion? Is there a parallel with Mao Tse Tung's dialectical reinterpretation of Confucian relationships where the thesis and antithesis no longer balance(as in yin and yang), and a new synthesis takes place? This may be related to the pictorial structure ofMichelangelo's 'Creation' (Fig. 3). God and Adam, each in human form, offer a pseudo-symmetry; even more so, their hands touch in a configuration related by a mirror plane-the right hand of God reflected as the left hand of Adam. Michelangelo disturbed the symmetry gently but firmly to give the impression that life flows strongly into Adam. On the molecular level a parallel can be seen in the action of enzymes, the biological catalysts that endow dynamic properties on living organisms. It now appears that some of these have evolved from a protein made of two identical copies of a smaller molecule. Although two symmetrically related groups would be unlikely to have catalytic properties, in evolution nature has accepted mutations that have modified the details of each half while keeping the basic architecture(or tertiary structure) of the ancestral protein. The net result, shown in Fig. 4, is a pseudosymmetrical (two-fold axis) molecule in which the two topologically equivalent catalytic groups (the two 'hands' of the molecule) are now in distinctly different environments; one can push, while the other can pull. Catalysis results. The role of symmetry in resting or static systems is subjectively pleasing. It is therefore not surprising that internal symmetry has been the intuitive justification for many scientific hypotheses. The understanding of helices of proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates and the Monod symmetry model for cooperativity have been advantaged by this approach. But nature does not always choose the most restful or harmonious motifin its search for motion in life. Molecular biologists should consider Chinese bronzes, Leonardo da Vinci's drawings and Escher's prints by all means; but they should also consider Michelangelo's 'Creation', if they wish to understand life and motion at the molecular level. (Received 30Jan. 1981) T. L. Blundell Dept. of Crystallography Birkbeck College. University ofLondon Maler St. London WC IE 7HX, England VISUAL ORDER IN VISUAL ART AND VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS IN SCIENCE The chief functions of the visual arts are to either stimulate, widen or deepen one's emotional perception either of things, situations or events and also to help one to comprehend the knowledge and conceptions of the universe, including the human species. This is accomplished by means ofartefacts and, recently, sometimes by means of artistic 'events' or 'happenings'. Science covers a wide range of activities extending from the accumulation and systematic formulation and rationalization of knowledge about the diverse relationships of the physical and biological worlds, to the application of that knowledge for the satisfaction of human needs and desires. Contemporary science, which can be said to have started in the mid-19th century, differs, I believe, from modern science launched in the 17th century in that scientists now frequently analyze the world in terms of concepts that are completely .different from those encountered in everyday experience. Although one finds in contemporary science clear, logical ideas and explicitly formulated theories, the terms in which some of these ideas and theories are couched and the concepts that underlie them were previously unknown [I]. The notion that mass and energy are mutually interconvertible, the fundamental idea that energy transfer associated with electromagnetic radiation occurs in quanta and the concept of gradual change in living things to the point of there being new species produced were extraordinarily novel ideas [2]. These recent ideas not only stress the importance of process, chance and indeterminacy in the concepts of what is reality but also demonstrate that scientists can regard the world in other ways than...