CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Among the axioms espoused by Thomas McMahon is that the writing of fiction and the practice of applied science are fundamentally incompatible endeavors. "Orthogonal activities," in fact, is how novelist/scientist McMahon dismissed the partnership of science and literature. In the tradition of scientists and novelists, McMahon said, there is no tradition.
"Zero," he said. "Name one."
Name one other than himself, is what McMahon should have said. Tall and lanky, the 43-year-old Harvard professor holds the university's prestigious Gordon McKay professorship in applied mechanics, and in addition, carries the rank of professor of biology. His specialty is biomechanics, a cross between biology and mechanical engineering. A tinkerer since childhood, McMahon translated his fascination with movement and the physiology of locomotion into the invention (with Harvard colleague Peter Greene) of the Harvard track, "on which people can run faster than on any other (indoor) surface."
Every day, McMahon bicycles the 14 miles between his home in Wellesley and his office just opposite the venerable University Museum here. He churns out scholarly articles, teaches undergraduate and graduate classes and sometimes subs as a physics instructor at the nearby Perkins School for the Blind. Two books by McMahon, "Muscles, Reflexes and Locomotion," and "On Size and Life" (co-authored with John Tyler Bonner), attempt to explain scientific issues to a broad popular audience. McMahon has written for the PBS-TV series "Nova," and in his spare time, consults for Nike athletic shoes. He also writes novels.
To McMahon, the latter fact is roughly akin to admitting some genetic anomaly. "I never say I am a novelist," he said in the quiet, even voice that sounds like it came out of one of the quirky characters of his own creation. "Oh, I never do. It's an invisible part of me."
So much so, McMahon said, that "the people who encounter me in my role as an applied scientist are very unlikely to know that I write novels." He shifted slightly in his big wooden chair. "I try to keep it sort of under wraps here."
Already, as a graduate student at MIT, McMahon's theoretically incompatible combustion of energies was blasting the test tubes of convention. His doctoral project involved a heart-assist device that went on to bolster aortas and help save lives around the world. His other postgraduate endeavor was a work of fiction that Little, Brown snapped up almost instantly. "Principles of American Nuclear Chemistry: A Novel," it was called, lest anyone be inclined to confuse it with anything so antithetical as a thesis in nuclear chemistry.
