Charles Percy Snow was a British scientist, novelist and government...
### TL;DR
The two cultures is a lecture by C. P. Snow where:
- ...
Steven Pinker on The Two Cultures and where are we today?
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The Nobel Prize in Physics 1957 was awarded jointly to Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao (T.D.) Lee ***"for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles."***
Learn more here:
- [C. N. Yang](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1957/yang/facts/)
- [T. D. Lee](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1957/lee/facts/)
Literature is slower to change than science so one should not be too harsh in judging contemporary literary sensibility given it is based on the events of the past decades. In this case most literature was greatly influenced but the period of 1914-1950.
In this part of the lecture Snow gives his arguments as to why he believes contemporary scientists although very intelligent seem to care little about literary culture. He believes that they are wrong to discard literature and that by doing that they impair their imaginative understanding of the world.
Steven Pinker on The Two Cultures and where are we today?
[](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BUbVc7qVpg)
Snow believes that the only way to bridge the gap between the two cultures is to reform the education system. With a highly specialized education system the gap between science and the humanities is only going to get worse. He believes that there should be a bigger overlap in the education of humanities and science.
C.P. Snow earned a doctorate in Physics from the University of Cambridge and did research in molecular physics for 20 years. The first part of the 20th century was one of the most prolific and creative periods in Physics.
### TL;DR
The two cultures is a lecture by C. P. Snow where:
- he states that science and the humanities which represented ***"the intellectual life of the whole of western society"*** have become split into "two cultures"
- he believes that this division was a major handicap in solving the world's problems
- he believes we should overcome this growing divide between and that education is the solution
- he wants to enable the right kind of expertise behind the decisions important for the future of humanity and this is only possible with good communication between science and the humanities
Snow about the divide between the humanities and science:
> ***"I felt I was moving among two groups comparable in intelligence, identical in race, not grossly different in social origin, earning about the same incomes, who had almost ceased to communicate at all"***
> ***"So the great edifice of modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the western world have about as much insight into it as their Neolithic ancestors would have had ... As though the scientific edifice of the physical world was not, in its intellectual depth, complexity and articulation, the most beautiful and wonderful collective work of the mind of man."***
How I can download offered paper?
The author believes that there are two main misunderstandings between science and the humanities.
On the one the non-scientists believe the scientists to be shallowly optimistic and on the other hand the scientists believe that the literary intellectuals restrict art and thought to the existencial moment and are unconcerned by the fate of fellow human beings.
He argues that these misinterpretations are dangerous and stem from the lack of communication.
> *"The non-scientists have a rooted impression that the scientists are shallowly optimistic, unaware of man's condition. On the other hand, the scientists believe that the literary intellectuals are totally lacking in foresight, peculiarly unconcerned with their brother men, in a deep sense anti-intellectual, anxious to restrict both art and thought to the existential moment."*
Snow is uniquely positions to write about this topic. Per his own words:
> *"So for thirty years I have had to be in touch with scientists not only out of curiosity, but as part of a working existence. During the same thirty years I was trying to shape the books I wanted to write, which in due course took me among writers. There have been plenty of days when I have spent the working hours with scientists and then gone off at night with some literary colleagues. I mean that literally. "*
Snow states the the problem of the cultural divide between the humanities and science is a serious one and it's pervasive to all western society.
> ***"This tendency appears to get stronger, not weaker, the more we iron out economic inequalities: and this is specially true in education. It means that once anything like a cultural divide gets established, all the social forces operate to make it not less rigid, but more so."***
> ***"This polarisation is sheer loss to us all. To us as people, and to our society. It is at the same time practical and intellectual and creative loss, and I repeat that it is false to imagine that those three considerations are clearly separable. But for a moment I want to concentrate on the intellectual loss."***
Charles Percy Snow was a British scientist, novelist and government administrator. He earned a doctorate in physics at the University of Cambridge, where he worked in the field of molecular physics for 20 years.
He became a scientific advisor to the British government during World War II and was knighted in 1957.
Snow was also a distinguished novelist. In the 1930s Snow began the 11-volume novel sequence collectively called "Strangers and Brothers" published between 1940 and 1970.
As both a scientist and literary man Snow argued that the lack of communication between the humanities and the sciences was very harmful practitioners these two disciplines knew little about the other.
With this lecture Snow wanted to call attention to a breach between science and the humanities the two major branches of Western culture, a breach long rarely enunciated by a figure respected in both fields.
