As both a physicist and published novelist, Snow was eye-witness to the growing differences between scientists and other thinkers, and the misunderstandings arising about science and its specialised language and methods.

It inspired him to publicise the emerging split among scholars, to question why it was occurring and how it had been allowed to happen.  He first drew the issue to public attention in the 1959 Rede lecture at Cambridge University.

In 1963, Snow re-published his essay, and threw down the challenge for the birth of a ‘third culture’, one in which intellectuals of both disciplines would meet, communicate and collaborate.

Since then, the concept of ‘two cultures’ and a ‘third culture’ to frame human intellectual endeavour has fascinated people on both sides of the disciplinary divide and inspired all kinds of study, commentary and activism.

In the year of its fiftieth anniversary, Science Hub re-visits The Two Cultures, with an occasional series on what the idea means to scientists of the twenty-first century.

In the coming months, we begin by talking to one of Australia’s most esteemed scientists: Professor Peter Doherty – Nobel Laureate, immunologist, author of two books and aspiring novelist.

Related articles:

• Culture – Science and Society: Professor Peter Doherty: not by words alone
• Fiat Lux: Q & A with Professor Peter Doherty
• ThinkTank – State of Australian Science: Innovation nation or a hole in the ground?

“And this is why, after trying to write a novel, I’ve got even more respect for good novelists. They start to write about something and then come to a new synthesis of it.  It means something to the reader in a way the reader has never seen before.”

Professor Peter Doherty is one of Australia’s most recent Nobel Laureates, winning the Nobel Prize in 1996 for Physiology or Medicine.  He was recognised for his research into how the immune response controls virus infections, work he continues at the University of Melbourne and St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.  He has written two non-fiction books already, and in 1997, was Australian of the Year.

In the final instalment of our four-part series, we see a different side of the Nobel Prize winner as we talk mysticism, literature and complexity with Peter Doherty, experimentalist and writer.  Coming soon.

Related articles:

• Fiat Lux: Q & A with Professor Peter Doherty
• ThinkTank – State of Australian Science: Innovation nation or a hole in the ground?
• Culture – Science and Society: The Two Cultures 50 years on – Professor Peter Doherty