Literature and Science

Well, one thing I am obliged to clarify. I am not here to preach what scientific theories are used in literature or enrich it. Rather, something enjoyably strange I happened to notice in literature. That is how interestingly scientific theories can be explained through the words of literature. Hope you will enjoy it as I do.

1.Theory of Relativity:  

Theory of relativity states that everything is relative. As you all know the popular saying of Albert Einstein if you sit beside a beautiful lady, hours will be reduced to minute and in the same way if you put your hands in a hot stove, seconds will be expanded into years! Now go through the creativity of Shakespeare’s Hamlet when he tells to Horatio:

 “Nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.”(Hamlet)

2.Adaptation & Survival of the Fittest:

Adaptation in biology means the adjustment made by an organism to become more comfortable, more suitable in the environment.  Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest theory refers to the competition or rivalry existed among the living creatures in order to survive and then “Might is right.”

Tess Stimson’s protagonist in his novel The Adultery Club says

“Nature makes us heartlessly resilient when necessary” when he lost his father.

3.Ecosystem:

Ecosystem refers to the complex relationship among a set of habitants based on dependency for food. In a pond plank tons eat moss , small fishes feed on plank tons, big fishes devour small fishes. So what is food for one , death for another. Now judge this:

“Better never means better for everyone. It always means worse for some.” (The Handmaid’s  Tale by Margaret Atwood)

4.The law of conservation of energy:

 The law of conservation of energy states that energy may neither be created nor destroyed. Therefore the sum of all the energies in the system is a constant .

Francis Thompson says the same thing :

“ Nothing begins and nothing ends.”

And another issue with this theory  depicts that energy can be converted from one form to another as in an electric bulb electrical energy is converted into light energy.

In To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf  says ,

“For nothing was simply one thing.”

Are literature and science poles apart?