Pulitzer finalist James Gleick and theoretical physicist-cum-novelist Janna Levin discuss the tensions between science and art evidenced by her novel, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines. Why stray from the “facts,” Gleick wonders, in telling a story of Alan Turing and Kurt Gödel, two of the 20th century’s greatest abstract thinkers? Because, answers Levin, “there is something about the process of thinking on the absolute periphery of what’s connected to ordinary human life that you can’t describe just by stating the facts.” Levin takes Gleick’s incisive, nuanced, fraught questions and responds with a grace and power akin, commented Junot Diaz, to “Babe Ruth bombing home runs out the park.”
From KWLS 2003: The Beautiful Changes
This recording is available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights belong to the author. © 2008 Janna Levin and James Gleick. Used with permission from Janna Levin and James Gleick.
