It came and went almost without notice: a small musicale at Rockefeller University last winter that was part of a symposium called "Meet the Polymaths." Ten amateur pianists performed favorite pieces, playing by heart for the most part, and afterwards engaged in a panel discussion on ways that music and the sciences seem to go hand in hand. The correlation is striking. It is hard to find great scientists or technologists who don't have some flair or at least passion for music. Einstein played the violin. Artificial intelligence guru Marvin Minsky loves to play fugues. Claude Shannon, the recently deceased father of modern information theory, tried to make computers compose music. MIT has a terrific orchestra. Yes, MIT.

Select from the choices above to read the entire article.