Fanatical Inquisitiveness

By John Elder, Physics Department.

He is driven by a fanatical in quisitiveness into an extraordinary This is surprisingly similar to the attitude of the artist or poet and just as the artist or poet focuses his attention on—or rather his imagination is captivated by—certain aspects of his world, so does the scientist.

It is interesting, and perhaps upsetting, to notice by the way that this singular ability of the mind to focus its perceptiveness can be stimulated in an ordinary person by the drug mescalin (often also in a minor way by alcohol), which merely alters the glucose metabolic rate in the brain. I use here the phrase "ordinary person" In the sense non-poet, non-scientist, etc. But are such "ordinary" people incapable of being poets, say?