Week 1: Two Cultures

UCLA Campus Map

Charles Percy Snow insisted the two distinct cultures of literary intellectuals and natural scientists. Since I am majoring the Electrical Engineering, I am staying Boelter hall, while I am staying at campus. As you can see on the campus map, the red pin Boelter hall is located on the south side of the campus and near Boelter hall there are Engineering, Math and Science buildings. However, on the north side of the campus there are many Art related buildings and sculptures. This represent the idea of two cultures. Although, these are all located in the UCLA campus, vividly there is separation in terms of location between natural science and literary intellectuals, two cultures.

Flag of the United States
and South Korea

Singer and Sound Engineer

John Brockman claimed gap between the humanities and sciences are still very fragile. I was born and grown up in South Korean until second year of high school, and now it has been about six years living in America. 
Nowadays, both of the cultures 
are already part of me. Even though, I am influenced by my father, Engineer. However, I am still influenced by my mother, Opera Singer, as well and I like music and singing. Now, I feel like there are no strong gap between cultures. Therefore, John Brockman, who negates Charles Percy Snow, was more impressive and leaned toward to his idea.

Division and Addition

P-N junction

The idea of John Brockman can benefit people to have an intuitive grasp on natural science by using the literary intellectuals. I recall that when I was element school, I liked to use some illustrations to help my understanding on mathematics and sciences. Even nowadays, when I was trying to understand some semiconductor and P-N junction. I used some illustrations as well.

I did not really think deeply about this kind of topic, communication and relation between cultures. However after watching videos, reading articles and writing this post, I can think of some possible communication and relation between the two cultures, the third culture. Now, I think I better to put some effort on some artistic field of study for new possibility and opportunity to improve myself.

Vesna, Victoria. “Toward a Third Culture: Being In Between.” Leonardo, vol. 34, no. 2, 2001, pp. 121–125., doi:10.1162/002409401750184672.

Snow, C. P. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution: the Rede Lecture. Publisher Not Identified, 1959.

Brockman, John. The Third Culture. Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Kelly, Kevin. “The Third Culture.” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 13 Feb. 1998, science.sciencemag.org/content/279/5353/992.full.

Wilson, Stephen D. “Myths and Confusions in Thinking about Art/Science/Technology.” College Art Association Meetings. New York, New York, 2000. Print