I went to a talk today by Illah Nourbakhsh about the Gigapan project. It was very good: entertaining, informative, and also somewhat thought-provoking. I won’t go into the details of gigapan, except to say that it is a cheap camera mount used to generate large resolution panoramas with billions of pixels. There are essentially two uses: many scientists have found applications for such pictures. Nourbakhsh made the point that it is not only useful for recording and representing a piece of science, but that the pictures themselves become scientific objects. One researcher took a picture of a forest, and then searched it to survey spiders and insects.

But there is also another, societal use. Like other photographs, the pictures record and conveys culture. This does not necessarily advance science, but it reminded me that there is more to life than science. Culture is important, also to science. In some sense, the large pictures are societal pieces of art. Instead of capturing one individual message, the panoramas are — almost by definition — group art, because of their size.

It also made me think if my piece of science can be applied on this level. And if not, why not? Where is that dividing line between this kind of “social” science and non-social science? Mathematics and computer science has been used for art. Often. But formal methods?

In at least one sense, software engineering is a kind of social science for at least a select group of people, namely software developers. It affects their lives, and have an indirect impact on all of us nowadays. To find ways to produce better software more efficiently can have enormous benefits. And in a general sense a lot of computer science is social, since a lot of software eventually ends up in the hands of users, people, and affects their lives. Still, it would be nice to think of a way to make our work more accessible. Interesting little intellectual challenge.