Is the discipline of physics the “Queen of the Sciences”? In this conversation with polymath and professor Jim Clarage, we discuss the ways in which the discipline of physics takes up all seven of the classical liberal arts. Along the way we consider other disciplines—music, mathematics, and theology—that also may fulfill this role and why Newman’s “circle of the sciences” remains relevant today. With cameos by Darwin, Einstein, and Galileo, we sketch the place of advanced scientific thought within liberal learning and the humility that may be required for its study.

Links of Potential Interest from Prof. Clarage:

The Book of Nature (author: God! Go out and stare at moon phases for month, shoot a garden hose in the sun, watch a morning spider engineering a web)

Stratford Caldecott. Beauty for Truth’s Sake. (Quadrivium in education as way to enchantment)

Maurice A. Finocchiaro. The Essential Galileo. (masterful use of mostly primary documents from the early 1600’s)

Werner Heisenberg. Physics and Philosophy.

Any Physics textbook.

John Stillwell. Any of the historical (but rigorous) texts by mathematician John Stillwell “translating” the great development of mathematics since Euclid (e.g, I’m reading his The Real Numbers now.)

Advanced: Charles DeKoninck, Le Cosmos. (The Cosmos, in McInerny’s Works of Charles DeKoninck )