A Problem in Dynamics

James Clerk Maxwell "A Problem in Dynamics" reflects some of the problems that Peterson identifies with student poetry in the disciplines of physics, chemistry, and biology; Maxwell oscillates between abandoning rhyme for meaning – a decision that Peterson advocates – and sacrificing the clarity of images and ideas in order to maintain his rhyme scheme.

As Peterson observes, the poetics of Patrick Lane and Michael Ondaatje involves a reduction and a progressive erosion of verse through successive revisions. That which remains after this process is little more than a skeletal essence, creating a Giacometti statue of a poem. In his rejection of such approaches, Maxwell delights in the expansiveness of his piece. Rather than distilling complex concepts and seeking to express the “dynamics problem” simply, Maxwell creates an at times bloated and unwieldy block of verse. Yet Maxwell does not simply reject the kind of aesthetic principles that define the aforementioned artists; he deliberately counters his natural inclinations as a physicist As a scientist, Maxwell would ideally seek to balance the demands of precision, accuracy, and concision, yet in translating a physics problem into verse, he deliberately confounds both physicists and students of English literature alike, despite the relatively simple situation that he describes. 

While any researcher in a particular scientific field embraces a particular lexicon and mode of communication that is common to all his or her peers, the language that he or she adopts is opaque to the uninitiated. To some extent, each scientific discipline speaks its own language. Yet most share a set of basic terms and conventions, expressing complex concepts through a shared language of mathematics. Those outside of the hard sciences lack this language, and the scientists' method of communicating simply and precisely becomes a barrier to understanding. Here, Maxwell plays with the language of the liberal arts, contorting it until it becomes an impediment to understanding.

Considering the poetic ideal of Lane and Ondaatje in the context of physics, mathematics is the highest poetry, for no symbol – no language – other than that of mathematics could represent its principles and convey Maxwell's intended meaning more clearly and concisely than a few simple lines of differentiated equations. Yet, Maxwell's humor depends on his verbosity and his over-complication of the physical principles. The poem's affective power, its ability to make us laugh, lies in its tortured attempt to translate between the conventions of scientific discourse and the physicists primary language of mathematics into a poetic structure and a complex English language.

The poem then offers students the chance to re-translate Maxwell's meaning and explore the ways in which our scientific modes of communication – which can at times frustrate students immensely – allows us to express and share ideas more quickly and easily than traditional English. A teacher could explore a variety of questions with his or her students related to the poetic form and its potential in a physics classroom. Could students adopt an approach similar to Maxwell's in order to simplify a problem at their level (one that does not involve a description and use of differential equations) into a narrative poem without sacrificing meaning for rhyme or rhythm? Could the poetic form be used to express a problem solving process involving simplification, identification, and solution?