How hobbies can help your science

A few months ago, Robert Flowers, a chemistry professor and dean of College of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University in the US, was struggling to write a complex paper about the rare earth metal samarium. One evening, while Flowers – an amateur guitarist – was composing a new song, he had an epiphany. He went back to his desk and finished writing the manuscript.

He realised later that his initial approach to writing the paper had been wrong – and the songwriting process had curiously aided him. ‘I was able to make the analogy from kind of pulling everything together for the song and translate that to the manuscript that I was working on,’ says Flowers, adding that composing a song requires a person to think about transitions, the story and its impact – and these elements are important for presenting or talking about scientific work as well.