Physics Major and Modern Art: Shafat's Jamil's Report on 16th November

Physics is not a very easy subject to pursue. There are thousands of researches going on concerning it. Even amalgamation of physics with chemistry, biology and computer science are taking place. Out of all these areas, it was really tough to find a proper research project for me. In College X most of the researches are Biology related. And most of the researches in Physics are based on Particle and Nuclear physics. But I found my interest in Optical physics. The college has some on-going researches in Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics. I have read few things about uses of AMO in our regular life. But College X researches, regarding this area, are only on Coherent Control, among many hundreds of uses of AMO. I haven’t read it in details yet. I am trying to find researches, similar to this one, in other universities. Then I will be capable of writing a proper Why Major.

A Liberal Arts education rarely prepares us for specific jobs, but it teaches us how to learn and adapt. So aiming for a particular job is of no use right now. But I did search for some carriers physics students pursue. Majority of students go for higher studies like Ph.Ds. And few get their fortune in some IT companies. A handful of them join as teachers in schools or colleges. But 99 percent of students get work after they graduate.

In the ‘The Dehumanization of Art’, Jose Ortega Y Gasset has described the difference between forms of modern art and old art. Modern arts are mainly made not for common people but for a specific breed of people. There is a difference in the way a common person looks at a painting than an artist. Untrained people look at a painting as they look at a garden through window without the consciousness of the presence of the window glass or the windowpane. Common people cannot adjust their views according to their needs. But an art should be seen like as if to ignore the garden and to focus on the window glass. Only an artist can do this by adjusting his views.

Modern art has changed a lot. In 19^th century most of the paintings contained houses, with gardens, and trees at a river side. And a human figure was used to express the image. Those arts directly focused on the meaning of the images. But modern art does not use humans to describe their art form, rather they do it inversely, more intricately. To understand a modern art we have to look at it from the view of an artist. We have to focus on the glass blurring the garden behind it.  

Shafat Jamil