FOCUS ON EDUCATION

The Arts and Engineering

MALCOLM D. SHUSTER

' . I have no interest here in Art as a ment we call intuition. Stated in other
Antisthenes (444371 BCE) [1] motivational device or as an aid in words, the most important part of
neurological development, valuable research is not finding the solutions
' 
'  . though these aspects of Art education but finding the problems. Unfortu-
Solon (ca. 640558 BCE) [2] may be. What I wish to propose are nately, we cannot teach induction,
the propositions that creation in Art senior-year projects to the contrary. So
and creation in Engineering have we teach Engineering and Science
e are often told, almost much in common, and that the study courses as deduction with an occa-

W always by nonengineers and

nonscientists, that instruc-
tion in the Liberal Arts and the Fine
of the Liberal Arts and the Fine Arts
in tertiary education demands cre-
ative participation on the part of the
sional dollop of historical and physi-
cal motivation, and we give the
misimpression to our students and to
Arts should be an important part of student, while the study of Engineer- the world that ours is primarily a
the education of engineers. The posi- ing most often does not. rational deductive discipline.
tion of the nontechnical person is Contrary to the misconceptions of For the largest segment of success-
that a liberal education will make most nontechnical people and, proba- ful Engineering graduates, it is suffi-
engineers better people and better bly, of many Engineering and Science cient that they be good deducers,
able to understand and respond to students, Engineering, Science, and since their work will consist largely of
the needs of society. American Engi- Mathematics are not purely deductive the application of existing methods.
neering students, however, are disciplines. Innovation in these disci- At the risk of seeming elitist, I assert
unconvinced and mostly greet such plines, certainly, is not. Deduction that not all good engineers are suited
assertions with ridicule and scorn. tells us nothing about how to deter- by temperament to research, and the
Both sides are wrong. Exposure to mine the assertions we wish to vast majority do not engage in it.
the Liberal and the Fine Arts is deduce or by what deductive path we Research is also not necessarily the
important to the education of engi- will deduce them from basic princi- most important quality for judging
neers, but not just to make them better ples. At a still higher level, deduction the value of a career in Engineering,
members of society. Such exposure is does not tell us how even to choose although many researchers may not
important, because it will make them our basic principles. Deduction is be able to accept this. Some of this
better engineers. important to mathematical disciplines writers most satisfying work has
There have been many studies of like Physics and Engineering, because been outside research doing develop-
the value of the Arts in primary and we cannot accept a theoretical asser- ment work, what many call real
secondary education, particularly as tion which cannot be deduced from engineering. Research is often a very
a motivational device, and there basic principles. An inability or frustrating activity. I do research,
have been even experimental studies unwillingness to carry out the deduc- lofty motives aside, because I am dri-
which show that intense exposure to tive process fully and rigorously often ven to do research, much as a runner
art develops superior spatial-visual leads to very bad research. I have seen is driven to run his daily mileage.
coordination and other basic skills. this many times. But deduction is Many universities were once criti-
Im not sure, however, how much probably not the most important cized for giving too much emphasis to
these studies will influence a sec- activity of Science or Engineering research rather than to teaching. Now
ondary-school student who asks, like research. The most important activity universities have focused primarily
the illiterate dance student in the is induction, how we determine the on funding.
1980 Alan Parker film Fame, why he things we wish to prove (or discover The other misconception is that
must read the book when he can or design or invent) and how we are Science and Engineering deal with
watch the video. going to prove (or discover or design immutable truths, which also is not
or invent) these things from observa- exactly the case. We believe that such
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCS.2008.924881 tion, analogy, and the magical ele- truths exist, of course, but not

96 IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE AUGUST 2008 1066-033X/08/$25.002008IEEE

necessarily that we know them. In Sci- our understanding through examina- not simply repeating experiments for
ence and Engineering we never have tion and reexamination is more acces- different substances or applying the
a complete theory, and often we must sible in the Arts than in Science and same technique over and over again
revise our ideas as our experience Engineering. The appreciation of a to different systems, is more demand-
increases. The majority of people do work of art is truly an inductive expe- ing than artistic creation, because
not understand this. Far too large a rience. Regretfully, my efforts to culti- one must be able to do both induction
fraction of our population, when a sci- vate greater contact of engineers with and deduction well. The very best sci-
entific idea turns out to require revi- the Arts have yielded only bitter fruit. entists and engineers are often artists
sion, thinks the need to revise a I always told my Engineering students as well if only secondarily to their
theory justifies the belief in such that they would become better engi- technical profession. Einstein, a poet
absurdities as intelligent design, cre- neers if they would read a poem every of Physics, also played the violin and
ationism, or astrology. The true world week, especially a non-narrative poem. made amateur art films. Akito Arima,
of Science and Engineering is cloaked You can imagine their response. former president of Tokyo University
in ambiguity and doubt. Our job is to When we confront our students and a notable nuclear physicist, is one
find the best approximation of truth with a work of art, whether it be a of Japans better known haiku poets.
amidst that ambiguity. poem (preferably non-narrative), or a Few poets of the English language can
How do we make our students sculpture or painting (preferably non- solve even elementary problems in
(and ourselves) better inducers and representational), that experience Mathematics or Physics.
better able to deal with ambiguity? requires a creative (and often induc- Art is not the only part of the
Here, I believe, the best laboratories tive) effort on their part, not the cre- Liberal and Fine Arts which has this
are the Liberal Arts and the Fine Arts. ative effort of the artist who created benefit. I claim that so does the learn-
Serious novels, poetry, paintings, these works, but creative nonetheless. ing of a foreign language, especially a
sculpture, pieces of music, and other The student must somehow go language very different from ones
products of artistic expression are not beyond the superficial form in order own, whose vocabulary may have
quantitative, and their art derives in to appreciate the work. It is not sim- different semantic ranges and whose
no small part from ambiguity. My ply a bunch of words, notes, colors, grammar may exhibit very different
claim is that the Liberal and Fine Arts lines, curves, and surfaces. An artistic morphological and syntactic forms
accustom us to working amidst ambi- painting or photograph is not the from ones own, and which may dif-
guity and uncertainty. This is not to same as a snapshot from the beach. A ferentiate words according to concep-
say that professors in the Liberal Arts novel or a poem is not the same as a tual categories which seem beyond
or Fine Arts can teach us how to deal newspaper article or a product exotic. Languages most separated
with ambiguity or how to be induc- description. The key to appreciating a from ones own either in space or in
tive. But they can expose us to many sculpture by Michelangelo will never time (or both) are likely the best. The
tantalizing examples of ambiguity, lie wholly in an atlas of diffeomor- puzzling out of meaning in such lan-
and to a lot of sensations and to forms phisms describing its shape. guages is not a very different exercise
of perception which dont exist in the Some students, whether would-be from puzzling out the meaning of
normal realm of Science and Engi- engineers or humanists, cannot get Engineering results, and, certainly, it
neering. As engineers and scientists, what a work of art is all about, and is a constant exercise in induction.
we generally brush off the Liberal and we are unable to teach them how to Listening attentively to serious music,
the Fine Arts, because they are not get art. At best they learn a lot of reading serious literature seriously,
quantitative and lack any kind of vocabulary and how to recognize dif- examining works of pictorial or plas-
repeatability except for trivial copy- ferent periods or different artists, but tic art, or even watching foreign
ing, but this quality of Art is insuffi- they never truly experience art. They films, all have something to con-
cient justification for neglecting it. can only repeat what they have been tribute to our education as engineers.
Actually, there are repeatable truths told. The first person to say your Better still is to engage oneself in the
related to the Arts, which come from eyes are like the stars was a poet. creative side of the Arts, however
the application of Science to the Arts, The first person to repeat it was trite. poor the results. My own pitiable
as in the computer-aided statistical It is that way in Science and Engineer- experience has been that writing a
analysis of literary texts, but this is ing too. Perhaps, many of our Engi- short story feels rather like writing an
repeatability in Science rather than in neering students and many of our article in Engineering or Physics,
Literature. What makes literature art Liberal Arts students are like this. while writing a poem feels like prov-
is lost in the noise of such analyses. Engineering and Science research, I ing a theorem in Mathematics. I note
The truths of the Arts are not quanti- claim, are the more difficult profes- with satisfaction the belief stated by
tative, nor are they universal princi- sions. In some ways, significant many pundits that much of Mathe-
ples, but the experience of increasing research in Science and Engineering, matics is simply good grammar.

AUGUST 2008 IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE 97

 Most important of all, we must We must also keep in mind that organizations for university Engi-
remember that Engineering research problem solving of any kind, neering programs have done consid-
is a creative act, and creation is whether it be in Mathematics, erable damage to the education of
always an expression of the imagina- Physics, or Engineering, or working engineers by forcing too much stan-
tion. Following someone elses math- out the best fingering or phrasing for dardization. The success of our
ematical proof or the progression of playing a piece of music, achieving a future scientists and engineers may
equations in Engineering or Physics is desirable rhyme and meter in a lie in a greater diversity and liberal-
not an expression of the imagination. poem, developing technique in a ization of our education programs at
Creating that proof or those equa- sport, creating tension or resolution all levels and in higher standards of
tions for the first time was. (Your eyes in a musical composition, literature, performance rather than in rigid
are like the stars!) The closest we painting, or the plastic arts, under- standards of technical content.
come in Engineering courses to help- standing a work or even only a word I do not practice the science of
ing our students learn induction is in in a foreign language, planning a research but the art of research. Ars
their homework problems, but not if trip, or achieving a certain taste and gratia artis mechanicae, Art for the sake
these problems are only substitution texture in a culinary dish, is valuable of Engineering, to modify the motto
problems, or repetitions of the text, or in itself and valuable also for us as of MGM.
carefully guided problems of con- engineers. If we focus our attention
necting the dots, which is the general too strongly on solving problems in AUTHOR INFORMATION
case, especially in the more recent only our chosen discipline, in which Malcolm D. Shuster (mdshuster@
textbooks. If the problems do not the range of perception and expres- comcast.net) is a nuclear physicist
require significant nonrepetitive sion is limitedespecially so in Engi- turned rocket scientist, who has often
effort from the good students, then neering and Sciencethen we lose wondered if he would have been
they are really of no value except to suppleness in our thinking, as well as happier making a career in Germanic
enhance short-term memory. Unfor- the insights that often come from Philology or Indo-European studies.
tunately, we opt too often for home- obscure analogies. The ancient He has published mostly on elemen-
work problems which do not require Greeks knew better and saw Art in tary particle interactions with nuclei
much thought, perhaps, because so everything. So should we. and, especially, on spacecraft attitude
few students can be expected to solve A recent study [3] by the National estimation. He has also participated
any other kind. As in the well-known Academy of Science, the National in the launch of several satellites and
sports maxim, the art of Engineering Academy of Engineering, and the worked on submarine-launched bal-
is learned in the struggle to get the Institute of Medicine has proposed a listic missile systems and Geo-
answer, not in simply being shown it. large investment in our K12 and physics. The article here is adapted
(Interestingly, the homework in university Science, Mathematics, and from part of a keynote address [4],
advanced courses in Pure Mathemat- Engineering programs in an effort to which he delivered at a symposium
ics is generally of the inductive vari- compensate for decades of erosion. in his honor in 2005. This keynote
ety and requires some imagination.) Missing from that program, however, address appeared subsequently in
The activity of research in Engineer- is any effort to improve the educa- greatly altered form in a special issue
ing has far more in common with tion of future engineers, scientists, of The Journal of the Astronautical Sci-
artistic creation or even with the and mathematicians in the Liberal or ences [5], derived largely from that
appreciation of a work of art than Fine Arts. If the purpose of that symposium. He makes his home in
anything which we usually teach in investment is to enhance innovation Germantown, Maryland. His Web
our Engineering classes. If we share in technical fields, then it may be site is http://home.comcast.net
his mother tongue, we might, if we very short-sighted to invest only in /~mdshuster.
were sufficiently talented, learn far technical areas and exclude those
more of an Engineering graduate stu- areas which bring us into more direct
dents promise as a researcher by confrontation with the creative REFERENCES
having him write a poem or a short process, with ambiguous concepts [1] To a wise man nothing is foreign.
[2] As I grow old, I ever learn many things.
story than by examining him on Fluid and data, and with more diverse
[3] National Academy of Sciences, National Acde-
Dynamics or Finite Element Analysis. avenues of perception. Innovation my of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, Ris-
This is not to say, as one colleague and creativity are most often the ing above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and
has already chosen to misinterpret province of those with strong inter- Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.
National Academies Press, 2006.
my remark, that we should not test ests outside their profession. Stan-
[4] M.D. Shuster, Beyond estimation, Advances
out students on their competence in dardization, even at a high level, Astronautical Sci., vol. 122, pp. 249270, 2006.
Engineering but only on their ability does not usually lead to greater cre- [5] M.D. Shuster. In my estimation, J. Astronau-
to write poetry. ativity or innovation. Accrediting tical Sci., vol. 54, no. 34, pp. 273297, 2006.

98 IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS MAGAZINE AUGUST 2008