Are Angels OK?

Paul Callaghan and Bill Manhire (Eds)

Victoria University Press

Otago Daily Times, June 17th 2006

“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Albert Einstein.

I have never agreed with the assertion that science and creativity are mutually exclusive. I believe the most profound scientific insights arise from imagining what lies beyond the known, while the fascinating nature of our physical world is a potentially boundless source of creative inspiration; the artist and the scientist meet in the uncharted spaces between what is and “what if?”.

Of all of the sciences, physics has always seemed to me the closest thing to magic that exists in modern times — a mysterious universe that makes sense when glimpsed through the corner of the eye, but incomprehensible when viewed directly. 2005 was the International Year of Physics; the centenary of Einstein’s “annus mirabilis” and the 50th anniversary of his death, and I can’t think of a more fitting way to honour his memory than the collaboration that produced Are Angels OK? The parallel universes of New Zealand writers and scientists

The basic premise is simple; pair 10 of our leading writers with 10 top physicists and see what happens, the only stipulation being that each author produces “something”.

The result is a richly diverse collection of pieces as different in both form and content as the individual participants, from Elizabeth Knox’s approach to the classic sci-fi premise of time travel (and the tricky problem of maintaining self-consistency) to Vincent O’Sullivan’s web of spider poems.

Ranging between the graphic-riff by Dylan Horricks about the scientific feasibility of cloud castles (unlike angels, they are probably not OK) to a public address by Jo Randerson on the relationship between science and religion (eerily resonant with a mathematical translation of Genesis I in Witi Ihimaera’s ‘Dead of Night’), there is something here for everybody.

Although I enjoyed them all, there were two personal standouts. Firstly, a series of poems by Glenn Colquhoun that translated the relationships described by various physical laws into verbal images that made sense to me in a way the mathematical notation never did. Secondly, an intricately crafted series of small, seemingly unconnected and random tales by Lloyd Jones, fragments of memories that slowly reveal themselves to be entangled in space and time, jigsaw echoes between the paths both taken and untaken.

Just as interesting were the notes written by each of the contributors, which are included at the end. For some, this collaboration has become the basis for more substantial work, while others wondered if they could even complete the project. None, however, regretted taking part, and the knowledge that each piece reflects an intensely personal experience adds a particular sense of intimacy to the writing.

My congratulations to Paul Callaghan and Bill Manhire for their genius in conceiving and delivering this collection, and I hope that further such projects will follow. I leave the last word to Einstein: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”