Creativity in science: a conversation with Akeelah Bertram and Kevin Lim
I’m delighted to welcome Akeelah Bertram and Kevin Lim to this episode of People Doing Physics.
Akeelah, a British multi-disciplinary artist and the current Cavendish Arts Science Fellow, creates immersive installations that blend digital and interactive art, performance, creative technology, and sculpture—all with a focus on collective storytelling. Her work often experiments with new modes of communication, crafting experiences that connect people across different locations and contexts.
Over the past year, Akeelah has been deeply engaged with scientists at the Cavendish Laboratory as part of her fellowship—a journey that led her to meet Kevin Lim.
Kevin, a Postdoctoral Researcher in Physics at the Cavendish, describes himself as a curious creative in Cambridge: a singer-songwriter, storyteller, and scientist. By day, he investigates how water reacts to sound and light waves. After hours, he’s a musician and videographer, teaching guitar, releasing new music, and making short films.
Naturally, their paths converged, sparking a vibrant exchange of ideas and perspectives. Out of this encounter emerged a rich and reflective conversation, weaving together the threads of physics, art, and culture through personal stories and philosophical exploration.
Together we delve into the way scientific practice and artistic creativity intertwine, and consider how personal histories, institutional contexts, and different ways of knowing shape our pursuit of knowledge and creativity.
Stay with us.
Useful Links:
- LEAP Lab - Learn more about the LEAP Lab: Living Experiments in Arts-Science Practice to Re-imagine Sustainability
- Kevin's Youtube Channel - For more videos from Kevin, visit his YouTube channel
- Kevin Lim - curious creative in Cambridge - Explore Kevin's artistic work on his website.
- Cavendish Arts Science - Learn more about the Cavendish Arts Science programme and fellowship.
- Akeelah Bertram website
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Episode credits
Hosts: Vanessa Bismuth
Recording and editing: Chris Brock
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
After a while, it feels a little bit like more of the same, in a way, even in research, but a lot of research that is done because it's building on so much that is known and it's not, say, jumping off into somewhere really crazy or far flung.
Speaker A:You can have a pretty good sense of where it's going to go.
Speaker A:You can see the trajectory of it, and at that point it becomes somewhat less exciting to me.
Speaker A:In a way.
Speaker A:Maybe it's like being an adrenaline junkie of sorts of like, ah, this is not exciting enough.
Speaker A:I need something new.
Speaker B:Welcome to People Doing Physics, the podcast that explores the personal side of physics from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
Speaker B:I'm your host, Vanessa Bismuth, the communications manager at the Cavendish.
Speaker B:I'm delighted to welcome Akilah Bertram and Kevin Lim to this episode of People Doing Physics.
Speaker B:Akilah, a British multidisciplinary artist and the current Cavendish Art Science Fellow, creates immersive installations that blend digital and interactive art, performance, creative technology, and sculpture, all with a focus on collective storytelling.
Speaker B:Her work often experiments with new modes of communication, crafting experiences that connect people across different locations and contexts.
Speaker B:Over the past year, Akilah has been deeply engaged with scientists at the Cavendish as part of her fellowship, a journey that led her to meet Kevin Lim.
Speaker B:Kevin, a postdoctoral researcher in physics at the Cavendish, describes himself as a curious creative in Cambridge, a singer, songwriter, storyteller, and scientist.
Speaker B:By day, he investigates how water reacts to sound and light waves.
Speaker B:After hours, he's a musician and videographer, teaching guitar, releasing new music, and making short films.
Speaker B:So naturally, their path converged, sparking a vibrant exchange of ideas and perspectives.
Speaker B:Out of this encounter emerged a rich and reflective conversation, weaving together the threads of physics, art, and culture through personal stories and philosophical exploration.
Speaker B:Together, we delve into the way scientific practice and artistic creativity intertwine and and consider how personal histories, institutional contexts, and different ways of knowing shape our pursuit of knowledge and creativity.
Speaker B:Stay with us.
Speaker B:So welcome Akila and Kevin.
Speaker B:Thank you for being here today.
Speaker C:Thank you for having us.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:So, let's start with the beginning, as we always do here.
Speaker B:Thinking back to your early days, can you each describe the experiences or influences that first sparked your interest in science or art?
Speaker B:And let's start with you, Klavin.
Speaker A:I think I've always been a very curious child, perhaps annoyingly so.
Speaker A:One of those kids would never stop asking, why?
Speaker A:Why this, why that?
Speaker A:How this, how that?
Speaker A:So perhaps it's quite natural that I ended up in science.
Speaker A:I. I think also beyond science, there's also been a side of me that's interested in what else is there.
Speaker A:So what can science, what are the limits of science?
Speaker A:What can science no longer tell us?
Speaker A:Where do we end up in territory of faith or belief or just things that we can't know at all?
Speaker A:And I think that also drives some of my artistic explorations.
Speaker B:So do you think your scientific and artistic sides are completing each other or are they clashing?
Speaker A:It often feels like they're clashing.
Speaker A:I've spent quite a long time trying to find a way to make them work together.
Speaker A:And maybe one day I will, maybe I won't.
Speaker B:What about you, Akilah?
Speaker C:Well, I think I grew up in quite a creative environment, not necessarily in ways where you would say were professionally trained.
Speaker C:It was very much cultural, music, dance, different forms of creative expression that were in a very informal setting.
Speaker C:And I think similar to Kevin, I was also very curious and very interested about how the world was structured and why it was organized the way it was organized, and what was the root of the root of the root.
Speaker C:And I think I enjoyed a lot of different subjects at school, but art was the only arena where I could borrow from lots of different ways of thinking about the world and lots of different rule systems.
Speaker C:So I could borrow some mathematical rules, but also some philosophical or theological ones.
Speaker C:And yeah, I wouldn't get told off about how I was blending them together.
Speaker C:And that's really, I think, how I ended up sticking with art because it gave that permission to reshape the world in lots of different ways.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Not.
Speaker C:Not discredit or.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Like kind of similar to what Kevin was saying.
Speaker C:Not have to settle for the limits that were presented to you.
Speaker C:I think I liked that openness and expansiveness.
Speaker B:So you touched on this a little bit.
Speaker C:How.
Speaker B:And it's question for both of you, but how have your family backgrounds or the cultures you grew up in nudged you along the path that you've taken, would you say?
Speaker C:Yeah, I think directly and indirectly in a direct way.
Speaker C:Again, it was very much about creative expression and alternative ways of being.
Speaker C:Being part of the fabric of my upbringing.
Speaker C:So my family is from Jamaica originally, and I grew up in the north of England in majority white English environments, but with like a secret club environment, which was like the church that I went to, which was Caribbean Pentecostal.
Speaker C:And my wider friends and family were mostly from the Caribbean.
Speaker C:And so I existed in two worlds with two different ways of structuring and knowing about reality, really.
Speaker C:And I think that really influenced the kind of Questioning of limits.
Speaker C:But yeah.
Speaker C:And then indirectly, because the kind of immigrant dream of making financial progress or material progress, I was encouraged to study economics.
Speaker C:And I think resisting against that was actually what made me decide to study art and pursue it as a profession or as a vocation, really.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So there was like a tug of war which pushed me somewhere that I probably wouldn't have gone if.
Speaker C:If I didn't have that little bit of resistance.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Do you feel the same, Kevin, that you had that kind of background or upbringing that led you in one path rather than another?
Speaker A:I'd say that's quite accurate.
Speaker A:So I'm originally from Singapore.
Speaker A:That's where I was born and grew up.
Speaker A:And the culture in Singapore is.
Speaker C:Not.
Speaker A:Very aligned with arts, let's say.
Speaker A:It's very pragmatic, very rational, scientific.
Speaker A:Probably what you'd expect from an industrializing culture that's come out from rapid economic growth and development.
Speaker A:But as a result, I think I never really felt I fit in completely there.
Speaker A:So there was a big part of myself that couldn't really be developed or expressed, I think, artistically.
Speaker A:And, yeah, there was definitely a time when I wanted to be a musician or, say, a music teacher, but that wouldn't fly with my parents.
Speaker A:So as a result, I took the sensible path until now, where maybe I'm coming back to the less sensible path, but perhaps the more natural path for me.
Speaker B:So what's the sensible path in a few words?
Speaker A:Sensible path is study.
Speaker A:Something that gives you concrete technical skills and will get you a stable good job that will allow you to live comfortably.
Speaker B:And you chose, naturally, physics, Actually, yeah.
Speaker A:So in school.
Speaker A:In school, I wasn't actually very good at physics, but I think I've always had a way of thinking that is quite like a physicist.
Speaker A:So even when I was studying chemistry in undergrad or when I was doing research attachments, people always thought that I was a physicist or that I was going to study physics or I should be a physicist.
Speaker A:And eventually they were right and I ended up in physics.
Speaker A:But I guess as a slight digression on that topic, I felt that in.
Speaker A:In Singapore, doing scientific research was probably one of the freest places that you could play artistically.
Speaker A:In a way I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back, I found that the kinds of research that I was drawn to and really enjoyed had a certain artistic element to it, whether it was something involving color or making pictures or looking at patterns in pictures.
Speaker A:And that was a space that you could be encouraged to be bold and daring and try things, and that was fine.
Speaker A:And that was part of the job.
Speaker A:And you didn't really get that as much in many other places.
Speaker B:I felt that's interesting.
Speaker B:And we'll get back to that point, actually, about creativity in your scientific practice, because I think it's a very interesting question.
Speaker B:But, Akilah, can I go back to you?
Speaker B:You said before and that you define yourself as a maker and a looker rather than an artist.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Can you.
Speaker B:What do you mean?
Speaker B:Can you tell us more about that?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I think, like, artists as probably the most convenient word for communicating to other people the kind of things I might be interested in doing or the kind of thought processes and practices I might be employing.
Speaker C:But I think when I think about the core of what I actually do, I spend a lot of time looking and looking deeply or even looking at how other people are looking, and I let that kind of wash over me, filter through me, and then I make something.
Speaker C:And I think we all do this to some degree.
Speaker C:It's kind of our habit as a species, really.
Speaker C:And I think when I describe myself like that, then there's a lot more parallels with what Kevin's describing in terms of the creativity that he found initially when he was starting out in science.
Speaker C:And I think you can take that to any field.
Speaker C:And that's what we do, really.
Speaker C:We look at the world, we try and shape it in different ways, and then we make something.
Speaker C:And whether that's a conceptual make in words or philosophies or a physical make in objects, that's all we're really trying to do, make a puzzle out of the world and rearrange it in the way that we see fit.
Speaker B:You both describe yourself as curious people and avid of information.
Speaker B:And how do you each navigate the balance between what you already know and.
Speaker B:And the excitement of what you don't?
Speaker C:Yeah, I think for me, it's more of an internal clock of boredom.
Speaker C:So I don't think I'm managing it.
Speaker C:I'm more being managed by that attention span.
Speaker C:And I think there's a lot of comfort in what is known, and it allows a lot of parts of your brain to relax because you don't have to constantly be on guard or be looking.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:But yeah, the excitement comes from something new or the feeling that you are entering into new territory.
Speaker C:And yeah, for me, it's a push and pull because it is useful to know stuff and to put something to bed and not have to think about any deeper into the layers of it.
Speaker C:But at the same time, we're alive because we keep searching for things.
Speaker C:So for me, a natural kind of reaction.
Speaker A:I think for me it's similar to what you said about almost being managed by this sense of boredom.
Speaker A:Whenever I enter a new field or come into contact with something that is quite outside of the realm of what I know, it can become very interesting.
Speaker A:And often I'll dive quite deeply into it and spend time knowing, more absorbing and maybe, yeah, just kind of becoming immersed in, in that space.
Speaker A:But there also comes a point in time where, like maybe with science to some extent, I feel like, okay, I've, I've understood this much, I've seen this much.
Speaker A:After a while it feels a little bit like more of the same in a way.
Speaker A:Even in research, I think this is perhaps a little controversial to say, but a lot of research that is done because it's building on so much that is known and it's not, say, jumping off into somewhere really crazy or far flung.
Speaker A:You can have a pretty good sense of where it's going to go.
Speaker A:You can see the trajectory of it.
Speaker A:And at that point it becomes somewhat less exciting to me.
Speaker A:So in a way, maybe it's like being an adrenaline junkie of sorts.
Speaker A:You're like, ah, this is, this is not exciting enough.
Speaker A:I need something new.
Speaker A:And I think that also definitely drives me.
Speaker C:Yeah, I've heard a lot of people talk about the kind of linear progression line of science as standing on the shoulders of the people that came before.
Speaker C:And the image I often get is, you know, those human pyramids where everybody has to.
Speaker C:Obviously it eventually leads to just one person being stuck there.
Speaker C:And so this kind of narrowing cone of knowledge because you keep building on so many more things is the kind of image that I get when you're, you're describing that not being able to jump off into something completely new and unknown.
Speaker B:Start your own new pyramid.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly, the pyramid.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But you said actually before that you appreciate physics as one lens amongst many to understand reality, but also that the disciplines, institutional or cultural way can sometimes limit the openness to those ways of knowing.
Speaker C:Definitely.
Speaker C:And I think this is not just unique to physics.
Speaker C:We do this with every area.
Speaker C:But I think it's probably easier to see it here because there is such a strong sense of building on existing knowledge, on building on existing limits.
Speaker C:But I think everything reaches the point of diminishing returns where no matter how much more you put into it, you're still going to get only incremental and then eventually no real new results.
Speaker C:And yeah, it's kind of on us in a generational way to recognize when we've reached the end.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:The end of a journey with a particular way of doing things and either invent new ones or mutate the existing one into something that can go beyond the limit that it's reached.
Speaker A:I've heard this analogy being used to say that sometimes it's like climbing a tree to reach the moon.
Speaker A:You see steady progress until you reach the top.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And then you realize that maybe wasn't the right route.
Speaker A:You're barking up the wrong tree.
Speaker A:Time to do something else.
Speaker A:Build a rocket, flying machine, something.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I think that that's also like an interesting side of this idea of the unknown, because obviously you don't know the unknown.
Speaker C:So it's like you've never reached the top of the tree before.
Speaker C:And how do you start to identify, or when do you say?
Speaker C:Because I think a few conversations I've had with scientists here, a lot of their research is kind of having a Hail Mary with AI and the idea that the complexity that AI can unpack might be able to unlock a new frontier for them, which I don't doubt that that has truth to it, but I think the idea that we've reached our capacity or our creative capacity as humans, it's maybe a bit resigned or a bit like giving up, or maybe we're just not able to imagine our new role with that complexity.
Speaker C:Aid of AI.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The thing that.
Speaker A:I think we spoke about this before, that if it seems that we understand most things about the world now and that the pace of dramatic revelations has diminished, there's two ways to interpret that.
Speaker A:And one, which maybe is the conventional way, is that we have found out most of what there is to find out about the world.
Speaker A:And that's why we are seeing less and less new discoveries that are dramatically changing our view of the world.
Speaker A:But the other way to interpret that is that we are operating in a limited paradigm and that we have found everything that we can find within this paradigm, and it's time to look at new paradigms which might include observations and phenomena and theories that seem wildly outside the norm.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think that's true.
Speaker C:And I often wonder about people maybe making discoveries 200 years ago and previous to that, and I wonder about how finite they were, because I think what I've experienced at the Cavendish is quite a finite culture where it's very easy to discredit and identify things that lay outside of the culture.
Speaker C:So we're not going to speak to a shaman and ask him what he thinks about what these atoms are doing, because there's no value in that and it's just a very closed off system.
Speaker C:But I wonder about.
Speaker C:You probably be able to list more scientists than me, but these scientists that had these revelatory experiences that led to their discovery.
Speaker C:I wonder about how infinite they were as people.
Speaker C:Like how infinite were the kinds of ways of knowing that they were drawing from.
Speaker C:Were they religious, but also maybe superstitious, but also maybe something else that helped feed the actual scientific discoveries that they made and the way that they were approaching the practice of science.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I think when we get a little bit too uniform in who we are and how we show up in our practices, we're bound to cough these infinite possibilities of what, what shapes us and what we can actually think of and come up with.
Speaker B:But I think there's something around that brings us back to the idea of creativity and imagination.
Speaker B:So obviously this is at the heart of an artist's practice, but is there any place for it in yours, Kevin?
Speaker B:And your area of research is very fundamental and explore exploratory.
Speaker B:How do you feel?
Speaker B:How do you feed if at all your artistic sides and your research work?
Speaker A:Okay, so I wasn't expecting to go here, but based on two things that you've just said.
Speaker A:So one area that I'm kind of interested in developing in besides music, is I'm actually planning to start training as a shaman.
Speaker C:Amazing.
Speaker A:And yeah, that could be one way to know water.
Speaker A:Besides using scientific equipment, what if you would just essentially commune with it, whatever that means.
Speaker A:And if one believes in the existence of realms outside the material, then you could actually maybe talk to water as a spirit in the spiritual realm.
Speaker A:But even if you don't believe in that, it's also possible that even just the practice of trying to do that or believing that you're doing that could allow you to access other insights.
Speaker A:And if nothing else, it might be a bit like what Wittgenstein described, I think as the ladder that you need to climb up to somewhere and then after you've climbed up it, you throw away the ladder.
Speaker A:But you don't have to.
Speaker A:Not everything in your line of working needs to make sense.
Speaker A:You can get to a place that makes sense through things that don't make sense.
Speaker A:And I think we discard a lot of avenues of looking at the world at our either at our peril or just to our disadvantage, like we're missing out.
Speaker B:I think it's always about climbing somewhere up the tree or up the ladder.
Speaker B:But yeah, you're seeing it as a means you get to your final point rather than the actual.
Speaker C:Thing.
Speaker B:Or like this is not of interest, like it is just a mean to get to where you want to be.
Speaker A:If there even is a final point.
Speaker B:Yes, there is a final point, maybe not.
Speaker B:And what is the final point is also a question, isn't it?
Speaker B:But how do you make space for intuition or, or play even in your, in your everyday work?
Speaker A:I think, I think it happens semi naturally.
Speaker A:Like it's a bit, it's a bit self selecting.
Speaker A:I think if I don't see enough potential to apply intuition and play in the work, then I'm not drawn to it and I don't do it or I avoid it.
Speaker A:And when I do get a project that I think I can apply these capacities to, then quite naturally they emerge.
Speaker A:So like research is a really nice space to be.
Speaker A:To imagine things and to just play with things.
Speaker A:Whether you're playing with nanoparticles or you're playing with big lenses and mirrors and sending light around on a wild goose chase.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Can I ask a question?
Speaker C:One of the things that has come up a lot this year is this idea of science being, or current modern science been based around this idea of testable, repeatable and the idea that if you've done something and it's successful, somebody else should be able to replace you.
Speaker C:Do the same process and it be successful again.
Speaker C:Do you think that the kind of downplaying or lack of focus on intuition is because it's the idea that your intuition shouldn't matter because somebody else should be able to also come in and do this process once we've figured it out?
Speaker A:I think that's, that's probably quite accurate.
Speaker A:It's like the cult of objectivity where two people will probably never have the same way of seeing the world or the same intuition.
Speaker A:And because we apply this filter to how we do science, you discard all of that human element and also all of that richness and potential insight.
Speaker A:And we kind of reduce things down to.
Speaker A:The only things that we can agree on are the things that we can find a machine to measure that would give the same result.
Speaker A:And so in a way we reduce our human science and human knowledge down to a machine science and a machine knowledge.
Speaker A:And I also wonder like sort of in a wider societal context if we end up mechanizing ourselves somehow.
Speaker C:I think so, yeah.
Speaker C:I wonder a lot about the tools that we use and how they shape us on how they shape why and what we think of as valid.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And the idea that completely different bodies from.
Speaker C:From completely different backgrounds with completely different trajectories of what they've seen and not seen and felt and not felt, should somehow replicate the same way that a machine could replicate from one machine to another.
Speaker C:I think it's quite.
Speaker C:We've created dead end, really, with what we're able to feel and discover.
Speaker C:And I think the parallel that's quite interesting where the creativity.
Speaker C:There's a lot of synergy between art and science, science when it comes to maybe discovery and creativity.
Speaker C:But the main departure is the idea that each artist is intentionally an individual experiencer of the world and then a filter of the world, a looker and then a maker of the world is a very individual exercise.
Speaker C:And that's why the creativity abounds in lots of different directions.
Speaker C:And I wonder about the potential to kind of apply that ideology of the value of the individual within the scientific process.
Speaker C:What they're bringing, what they're feeling, I don't know.
Speaker C:Can you imagine a version of science when we, in the mutated version of the science model that we're making?
Speaker C:Can you imagine how that might play a role or how that might shift things?
Speaker A:I guess it would go back to, in a way, the old ways that science was done back when it was more individual and less, kind of less.
Speaker C:Factory organized, Henry Ford kind of system of making and thinking.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker A:I think it would be, if nothing else, it would be more interesting.
Speaker A:But I also think that there's probably a lot more that we would find and achieve.
Speaker A:And sure, there is a role for large teams and kind of grand enterprises in science, but there's a lot that also.
Speaker A:There's a lot that is also excluded by that approach of doing things.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think we talked a bit about, I guess we could call it the ideation phase, that initial phase where you're trying to stay, use your intuition or your gut to kind of figure out what the trajectory should be.
Speaker C:And when you're trying to do this in a team setting, obviously you all have different intuitions.
Speaker C:And I think the social dynamics that are probably not identified enough.
Speaker C:The first meeting that I went to at the Cavendish.
Speaker C:Don't ask me what subjects, don't ask me what area of physics.
Speaker C:I had no idea what they were talking about, but I picked up on every kind of emotional and social dynamic that was going on in the room, kind of jostling for who's right and who's wrong.
Speaker C:And I think like you said in the cult of objectivity, I don't think they recognized that because it was facts and the facts do the arguing.
Speaker C:You were a person within this and you have a role in how the weight that is given to value and invalid things.
Speaker B:Yeah, this is very interesting because you, you, I mean, clearly you, you engage with science from an outsider's perspective.
Speaker B:Kevin, I think you said at some point that she was like an anthropologist observing the people doing physics as well as the doing of the physics.
Speaker B:But so from an outsider's perspective, sorry, what have you observed about the rituals and the beliefs within the scientific culture that you think are interesting?
Speaker C:Well, I think like, like any cult, they believe they're entirely right and everyone else is wrong.
Speaker C:I kind of make that a bit extreme.
Speaker C:But I think the main thing is the faith, really.
Speaker C:So I talk earlier in the year I spoke about the Cavendish being the church of science, or you could say the temple of science, because it's not really about aligning it to any specific religion, but it's about identifying the things that happen when a body of people need to institutionalize and gravitate around core beliefs in order to move forward and make any kind of progress.
Speaker C:And I think what inevitably happens with any group is that the fabric of what makes them a group becomes very invisible and it becomes, it just becomes the fabric of objectivity.
Speaker C:So the idea, it's been really interesting the conversations I've had where there was just no room to explore, like Kevin has mentioned the role of a material being as some kind of deity.
Speaker C:And not to say that it is a God, but what's the thought exercise in thinking of it in a different way than just atoms and molecules interacting with.
Speaker C:And again, there was an inability to think beyond the core tenets of the religion, which was really fascinating because discovery was a word that came up again and again.
Speaker C:And if you think of like people that used to voyage before the world was mapped in the way it is now, if they had believed that there was nothing beyond the limit of the sea that was there, they would never have gone anywhere.
Speaker C:And I think that's probably like the main impression I got.
Speaker C:The kind of fanatical in some areas of physics, but the very religious sticking to the core approach, which, yeah, was really.
Speaker C:I'm not recognizing it as that because it was measurable, a machine can come in and measure it.
Speaker C:So it's not the same as mysticism or any other faith because you can't measure those things, but we measure ours.
Speaker C:So that makes it completely real.
Speaker C:And then I suppose, like I found a bit of at the same time, I thought I found a lot of openness to the things that can't be measured because I, I guess it's the only real place that you flounder as a, as a physicist or as a scientist because you've got no tools to approach the, the things of our world and our existence that can't be measured because all your tools are in measuring things.
Speaker B:Let's stop here for a minute on that tension between objective measurement and subjective experience.
Speaker B:Do you ever feel that by using the scientific tools to shape what can be perceived and understood, we narrow our lens and our scope of inquiry?
Speaker C:Definitely.
Speaker C:I think we're all the subject of the tools that we use.
Speaker C:Probably the easiest exercise is the phone.
Speaker C:When you've used a smartphone too long, you can get very frustrated when you try and navigate without it.
Speaker C:When you try and remember a number or remember an appointment, like I did today, I was about to mention, you know, you lose the muscle for this other type of existence outside of the limits of that tool.
Speaker C:And it's very much the same in science.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:What do you think, Gavin?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean that's definitely there.
Speaker A:There are, I think probably many scientists as well have experiences that don't fall neatly in the realm of science and what is considered scientific.
Speaker A:But whether to protect their professional reputation or just to deal with their internal cognitive dissonance, they tend to just suppress these things.
Speaker A:For example, if you have a premonition or a dream where something's going to happen and then it does happen, it's like, surely that's got to be coincidence.
Speaker A:If something unexplained happens, like, oh, I think another one that happens is people who sense that someone is going to call them and then the person does call them.
Speaker A:That's another one that's interesting.
Speaker A:There are all kinds of strange phenomena that aren't even too crazy and then there are ones that are just way out there.
Speaker A:So I think, yeah, definitely there's so much that we could potentially understand about our world if we would actually just try and investigate them open mindedly rather than say, because this doesn't fit in our current model of science, it's not scientific and it can't be real, so it's wrong.
Speaker A:Why not say if there's something that's outside of our current realm of science, but it does seem to be reported again and again.
Speaker A:Maybe there is something there and maybe we need to expand our science and we need to investigate more.
Speaker C:I think you touched on quite an interesting point, which is another observation I've made.
Speaker C:The idea of what kind of consensus is valid?
Speaker C:So if it's a consensus that involves something measurable, it's okay.
Speaker C:But if it's a consensus, like, I don't know, like you said, a premonition or people receiving a vision or some kind of thing like this.
Speaker C:Well.
Speaker C:And even if, you know, a thousand people saw it or whatever, then the.
Speaker C:The tendency is to try and rationalize it away with something that's either probabilistic or statistical.
Speaker C:So, you know, oh, it was because the clouds were at this angle and these people were believing this or they saw this.
Speaker C:What's really interesting being here is that a lot of the cultural practices that I grew up with were much, very much about visions, about prophetic dreams, about people receiving different signs that helps them in some way or another.
Speaker C:And, yeah, it's been really fascinating being here.
Speaker C:And there's some people I've spoken to, and it's kind of the first time that they've engaged with somebody that would regard those as a very real part of existence.
Speaker C:And I think even that lack of exchange, even if it's not something you're open to yourself, but the lack of exchange with people operating on a different world way of knowing the world is maybe quite telling.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Quite insular.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, that might be a stretch of a question, but I'm interested to hear how you both define objectivity and subjectivity in your respective practices.
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean, I think there is no axiom.
Speaker C:There's no universal truth.
Speaker C:I think we collectively form our reality, and it's really dependent, dependent on the group.
Speaker C:So the group defines the reality, really.
Speaker C:It's like if you take law, for example, the group defines the law.
Speaker C:They define what age is appropriate to do something.
Speaker C:They define whether something is a bad crime.
Speaker C:They define who's the victim and who's the perpetrator.
Speaker C:And I think in that sense, objectivity is very fluid.
Speaker C:And I think transjective was the word that we were looking at.
Speaker C:Whereas you change the context of the thing or the object, then you completely change what it means in its existence.
Speaker C:So I don't really, really believe in objectivity, but I definitely see lots of different versions of subjectivity play out.
Speaker A:I used to be more of a believer in objectivity, and I think these days I don't really know anymore.
Speaker A:I think part of that is through influence from a collective that I've been involved in, which I was talking to you just now about Vanessa.
Speaker A:So that's a group called Leap Lab, which is an art science collaboration in Cambridge.
Speaker A:And when I First went into that, some of the ideas I was confronted with, I think really triggered my scientific training, or shall I say bias of.
Speaker A:What do you mean?
Speaker A:That there's no objective and everything is just relational or subjective or.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's tough.
Speaker A:I think it's hard to know what to believe in is what I feel.
Speaker A:And maybe that's quite a telling statement because in the end, it's about belief.
Speaker A:Do you believe in objectivity or do you believe in subjectivity?
Speaker A:And there is no way to prove your belief in one or the other to someone else?
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I wonder what you think of people that cling to objectivity.
Speaker C:Have you ever asked them about, like, can you.
Speaker C:If there's a human present, can it be an objective thing?
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:That's not a very good question.
Speaker C:But, like, why do you think so?
Speaker C:So if there's a human involved in the process, it kind of removes any potential of objectivity.
Speaker C:Like, objectivity only really exists if we're not involved or if sentient objects, People are not involved, things are not involved.
Speaker C:But when.
Speaker C:When you hear people kind of clinging to it and which I'm assuming that you may do in your field, what do you think it is that motivates them to.
Speaker C:To demand or have to have a sense of that something is objective?
Speaker A:I think sometimes it's almost like a teddy bear or a blanket.
Speaker A:It's like a.
Speaker A:It's like a comfort.
Speaker A:It's something that helps people to sleep better at night knowing there's an objective truth out there, like something actually exists and is real regardless of what we believe in.
Speaker A:But, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker A:I think maybe this is also a little bit linked to the desire to increasingly automate and mechanize ways of doing science, to.
Speaker A:To reach this sort of mythical objectivity.
Speaker A:But I'm not sure if what we are actually reaching is just like a worshiping of the machine God instead.
Speaker C:Yeah, I definitely think so.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So as this fellowship is coming to an end, I wonder if we could look back at the time and conversations that you both shared together.
Speaker B:What initially drew you to diving into each other's worlds through this fellowship experience?
Speaker B:And more interestingly, I think, have you found new ways of seeing or thinking about your own fields thanks to stepping into a different perspective?
Speaker C:So I initially, when I started this fellowship, I was interested in looking at water.
Speaker C:So the.
Speaker C:The kind of project or idea that I had applied with, I will say, came to me in a vision.
Speaker C:And the only way I could describe it is that water was calling to me and I knew it wasn't necessarily about even making with water, but there was something about how it existed.
Speaker C:And I previously, apart from drinking it and swimming in it and washing in it, I'd never really thought of it in that way.
Speaker C:My initial investigation had started to think about how different cultures relate to it and regard it.
Speaker C:So I asked Natasha to connect me with physicists that were working with water and Kevin was one of them.
Speaker C:I think what really struck me about the way that he was working with water is that whilst there was like a technical observation of it, the way that he was thinking was very exploratory.
Speaker C:And when I mentioned you know, even like a spiritual angle or a contextual cultural angle, he was like, oh yeah, that's, we must explore it in this way.
Speaker C:And so like, I think it was definitely his openness and his awe for water as well, which really struck me and, and was the foundation of ongoing collaboration really.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think with.
Speaker A:Surely it makes sense if you're studying water, you have to be somewhat fluid in your thinking about it.
Speaker A:I just had to say that.
Speaker A:Yeah, but besides drinking it, bathing in it, you are it.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like the commonly quoted figure is about two thirds of your body weight is water.
Speaker A:But if you translate that into the number of molecules your body, 99% apparently of the molecules in your body are water molecules.
Speaker A:So you are basically water with a bit of other stuff in it.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So yeah, I think it, it is probably right to have reverence or a sense of this bigger picture that we're embedded in around water, especially considering that all that water that's within us has cycled through the earth's ecological cycles, hydrological cycles, not just through clouds and rivers and rain, but also through plants and animals and just about anything and everything possibly.
Speaker A:So, yeah, sorry, short spiel on water.
Speaker A:Hencefor why I was drawn to water working with Akilah.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think it's that sort of curiosity and open mindedness, this spirit of, I don't know, it's just kind of expansiveness.
Speaker A:I feel like sometimes in, in the practice of science as it's conducted today, and especially in an institution, it can become a little bit closed off.
Speaker A:It feels, it can feel stuffy, let's say.
Speaker A:And yeah, it was a breath of fresh air to talk to someone within the department who's like, yeah, let's throw open the windows and take a deep breath of what's outside.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Would you say you found new ways of seeing or thinking about your own failed practice work.
Speaker B:Thanks to those interactions.
Speaker C:I definitely have like a more concrete example is like I had this sense that water mirrored some of the congregational and spiritual practices I'd grown up with.
Speaker C:And I couldn't really explain why, but I just saw a parallel.
Speaker C:And it's through talking to Kevin and other physicists that I've started to map something that I can now articulate.
Speaker C:So it's kind of thinking of water as a quantum state and that it has all these active possibilities for the pathways that the forming and reforming of the, the hydrogen bonds will take.
Speaker C:And I think even, even seeing it like that for myself was quite interesting because I, I knew it in my body that that was a thing and then that was a quality of water.
Speaker C:But being able to articulate that to other people who hadn't had the experiences I had growing up within that congregational mode.
Speaker C:Yeah, I needed a framework to communicate beyond my own internal experience.
Speaker C:And I think that was really a useful discovery for me.
Speaker A:I think for me it's probably been somewhat encouraging to consider more avant garde, shall we say more avant garde explorations of water.
Speaker A:Not just using conventional scientific thinking or methodology, but maybe exploring some of the wackier stuff out there, which I've always been curious about.
Speaker A:I would say even back when I was a lot more steeped in the traditional scientific training that I was brought up in, I think I've always been quite open, like, who knows, maybe something else.
Speaker A:And yeah, maybe it's, it's a, it's a little prod for me to start exploring that something else more seriously.
Speaker A:There's a lot of very interesting and very strange water science besides the stuff about hydrogen bonds and things that when you talk to well respected and respectable scientists in respectable settings, everyone nods their heads and is like, yes, yes, but more of the things that if you would say that in those contexts, there would be an uproar and people would be like, whoa, whoa, what's, what's going on?
Speaker A:Yeah, like, how dare you say that?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:So maybe challenging, challenging norms, I think is how I put it.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think it's interesting because this idea of wastefulness or not having an outcome in the discovery process is only, is only really given to the things that are not known at all, but things that are kind of half known or partly known.
Speaker C:Again, it's that kind of coning down of knowledge that, oh, you don't need to go down that road with it.
Speaker C:Don't be that wacky, don't be that wild in the discovery bit.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Do you feel like there always has to be an outcome or a projected outcome with a lot of research.
Speaker A:I think given the systems we're embedded in, yes, for the purpose of existing within the system, but for research in itself, I don't see why that should be the case.
Speaker A:I think it's just an exploratory pursuit and wherever it leads you, it leads you.
Speaker B:And there should be some space for it, for this in the system that you're allowed to explore things that have no necessarily, not necessarily an outcome, ideally.
Speaker A:Or maybe we just have to create a new system.
Speaker B:Challenging the norms.
Speaker B:We'll leave it at that.
Speaker B:Thank you so much, both of you, for your time.
Speaker B:I'm so glad that we managed to do it in the end.
Speaker B:Akila, you're gonna soon move away from Cambridge and get on with other things, but there will be some sort of thinking and work coming out of this year of fellowship here at Cambridge.
Speaker B:So we look forward to seeing this.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker B:Or to experiencing it in some ways.
Speaker B:And we'll, we'll put all the, all of the links in the show notes so that people can follow this, this, these news when they come out.
Speaker B:But thank you both very much for your time today.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you to Kevin Lim and Akilah Bertram for joining us today.
Speaker B:As always, if you would like to learn more about what we discussed in this episode and more generally about our work at the Cavendish, please have a look at the show notes and go to our website.
Speaker B:If you have any questions you would like to ask our physicists, head to social media and tag us with the hashtag peopledoingphysics.
Speaker B:This episode was recorded and edited by Chris Brock.
Speaker B:Thank you for listening to people doing physics.
Speaker B:We'll be back soon.
Speaker B:Until then, take care.
Speaker C:Sam.
