SPARK: Creative Processes in the Arts and Sciences. Music & Conversation with Artists and Scientists

Concert 18-19h

SooJin Anjou, piano

Cicely Parnas, cello

   Claude Debussy        Sonata for cello and piano (1915)
 

           Wolfgang Köhler      Jazz Sonata for cello and piano (2022)*

                                                            *world premiere
 

Discussion 19.15 - 20.15h

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty"?

Many scientists and mathematicians have expressed the view that the hallmark of a correct solution is elegance and beauty. G.H. Hardy wrote in A Mathematician’s Apology (1940):“Beauty is the first test; there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.” Physicist Paul Dirac asserted “It is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiment.”

Meanwhile, artists of all disciplines – music, visual arts, dance – have, throughout the centuries, wrestled with questions of proportion, form and structure, which are mathematical concepts at heart.

As we look “beyond now” with Berlin Science Week 2025, we invite bold ideas that transcend disciplines. Can beauty become a language of science? Can science, in turn, be a source of beauty and hope? 

With Cicely Parnas, Wolfgang Köhler, Georg Braune, Stefanie Grosswendt

Hosted by SooJin Anjou and Dr. Nikolaus Rajewsky