SAVED BY CHAOTICS: FROM ELECTIVE AFFINITIES TO FRACTAL ATTRACTION
SAVED BY CHAOTICS: FROM ELECTIVE AFFINITIES TO FRACTAL ATTRACTION

Summary/Abstract: In man’s endless pursuit of knowledge, science may be seen as having moved from perceiving the world as ordered, linear, reductionist, predictable and/or controllable (Newton) to viewing it as irregular, uncertain, unpredictable/uncontrollable (modern and post-modern chaoticians). On the other hand, the humanists have seen science as destructive of beauty (Romanticism— “unweaving the rainbow”) or as unexpectedly helpful. Three literary pieces have been chosen to illustrate this second perspective: Goethe’s Elective Affinities, presenting a chemical literary experiment based upon previous scientific claims regarding deterministic dependence of “reactive characters” upon the attraction between elements and compounds; then Goethe’s novel reworked in Banville’s “The Newton Letter”—an experimental exploration of the relationships between author/researcher and his inner/outer environments; third, Tom Stoppard gathering together in his Arcadia all sorts of scientists and writers to discuss a multiplicity of science topics including thermodynamics, fractals, chaotics…

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