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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Anton Zeilinger ventures into art

The "Documenta" is a major event in the German art scene. It takes place every 5 years and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. The well-known quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger will have an exhibition at this year's event, which just opened doors. The German Newspaper "Die Zeit" spoke to Zeilinger about this. If you don't speak German, let me translate you some paragraphs:
Anton Zeilinger... attracts mystics like light attracts moths, "quantum healers" or "quantum doctors" refer to him. "I am sorry," says Zeilinger, "there's nothing I can do about this." At the Documenta he will try to defend his research against such interpretations.
He says about the relation between art and science:
Scientists and artists have a lot in common, says Zeilinger: "Intuition and creativity are their most important tools, it is all about new approaches for the study of reality." But there is a point where [scientists and artists] differ: Science demands testability. And they have a claim of truth. "We say things about the world that are simply right." But if contradictions occur, scientists sometimes just throw out their view of the world. That was the case with quantum theory which entirely changed physics a hundred years ago.
I'll leave that for you to comment on...

I'll be away from my desk for a while, so don't worry if you don't hear much from me for the next week or so. And if you like our blog and/or extraterrestrial planets, you can vote for us in the 3 Quarks Daily contest here.

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