Tim Kaine: People Like Condi Rice and Albert Einstein Show Why We Need the Arts
In an article in Time magazine, Senator Tim Kaine recently co-authored an op-ed with artist Drue Kataoka in support of the NEA, arguing that participation in the arts sparks creativity and innovation in great scientists and thinkers.
We see this trend of art spurring scientific innovation in the biographies of great scientists. Alexander Graham Bell was a gifted pianist, and his observations about how musical chords traveled through the air inspired him to invent the telephone. In the next century, actress Hedy Lamarr and music composer George Antheil similarly used their knowledge of player pianos to invent a radio guidance system for U.S. torpedoes; these artists’ “frequency hopping” technology has since become a key component of military communications, GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth.