April 23, 2020, by Ross Wilson
Invention and Interdisciplinary Work
Research lies at the heart of what we do within Liberal Arts. It’s the process of discovering, testing, analysing and communicating. It’s what we do with our essays, coursework, exams and presentations. However, research is far important that because it acts as a means of seeing connections between subjects, issues and data. When we research, we are able to look at issues from a range of perspectives, see problems differently and create interesting and innovative answers. However, that connection is key.
Liberal Arts allows us to study across subject areas within the arts, social sciences and sciences. This means that we get to learn about a broad range of ideas, methods and theories. We don’t specialise, we believe in the importance of being a generalist. This means that we can approach issues without repeating and reusing the same ideas. We make connections between disciplines and data to see things in a new light.
Some of the greatest inventions of the last century have come from these connections. Think about telecommunications. Claude Elwood Shannon (1916-2001) is regarded as the pioneer of electronic communication. Shannon worked for Bell Communication Laboratories in the United States in the 1940s. It was here he noticed the similarity between telephone boards and what he had learnt about the philosophy of the nineteenth century academic George Boole (1815-1864).
Boole had forwarded a logic system which could reduce values to either TRUE or FALSE. Shannon remembered this structure from his classes and could see how electrical circuits could operate in the same way to relay information. A circuit could be OPEN or CLOSED just as a statement could be regarded as TRUE or FALSE. Shannon was able to rationalise the working of the telephone boards that dealt with large quantities of information. Indeed, the seminal paper on this topic can be regarded as truly multidisciplinary as a ‘symbolic analysis’ of electrical circuits:
It is moments like these that allow us to see the world in a new light, borrowing from other fields, crossing disciplinary boundaries enables creativity and originality. Researching different subject areas creates the opportunity for invention.
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