The value of science

In these days of austerity, with the next budget cut more severe than the previous one, it seems that everything that does not have an immediate impact on “the economy” stands the risk of being trimmed. The short-term thinking associated with this is terrifying in many ways. It may take generations to build a decent society, but it appears that things can be demolished at a surprising rate.

I am not going to rant about basic social values and how it is the responsibility of those that are well off to help those that are less fortunate. There should be no need for that, since the morality ought to be obvious (although... many of today’s politicians still seem incapable of understanding). What I want to raise are a few simple points concerning the value of basic science, where progress is often slow and where the tangible products may be few and far between.

If it is the case that research needs to have immediate and measurable impact outside the hallowed halls of the Academy in order to be worthy of support, then most blue sky thinking and “simple” furthering of knowledge will surely starve. Entire disciplines will have to be abandoned.

Maybe this is right and proper? Who needs these areas of research anyway? If they don’t contribute, get rid of them! Tradition? What kind of argument is that?

Let’s try to put value on a couple of things that we might consider giving up. How about Astronomy? Do we really need to understand our place in the Universe? Does it matter if we don’t know how stars are born, evolve and die? Who cares about black holes and such crazy things, anyway? Uh... Quite a lot of people, it seems. Astronomy research may not contribute much to economic prosperity, but... it certainly provides “entertainment” and stimulates debate and discussion among experts and excited amateurs. I personally think that, if you were to ask a typical person in the street if issues involving space are worth exploring then you would likely get an answer in the affirmative. If you consider the wow factor, then surely the spectacular images from the Hubble space telescope (and other missions) have immense value.

In a related area, let’s consider an example from history; Albert Einstein and his wonky-space theory of gravity from 1915. Completely useless, right? Exciting and thought provoking, but contributing to the economy? You must be having a laugh! Certainly, the impact of Einstein’s theory of relativity was rather less than immediate. But... and I think this is a really big but, it has been considerable. You may not need to worry about the details, but... if it were not for the corrections from general relativity then the Global Positioning System (GPS) would quickly lose accuracy. In today’s world of automatic navigation this could lead to chaos. It may have taken almost a century for this impact to be realized but it cannot be ignored today. Of course, if he had been assessed according to today’s rules then poor Albert would probably not have been given the chance to complete his theory.

Let’s see… another example of scientific blue sky thinking and playing around without particular thought of impact... The internet. Now... What’s the actual monetary value of that?

I could go on with this, but let’s consider a contrasting case instead. Why not take a look at some science that has had obvious and immediate impact on society? How about the economy work that politicians like to use as motivation for the current climate of austerity? The main idea is that you can get an economy back on track by cutting back, a bit like you give the trees in an orchard renewed life by a severe trim every now and then. Surely, this work was worth supporting? Indeed, it had immense impact on society (I can see it in my bank account!), and a pretty direct one at that. Funny thing though; It may be that this piece of work was flawed. Apparently the two economists made a basic error in a spreadsheet, which meant that they did not consider all the relevant data. If you fix this, then the conclusions could point in a slightly different direction. So there we are. I’m not sure what the take home message is. Perhaps we learn that research not having direct impact on society could be a good thing?

At the end of the day, we need to worry about what we are doing to the next generation(s). If we teach them that efforts are only useful if they lead to an immediate return, what kind of society are they going to build (for us to retire in)? We must allow our kids to dream and think big (sometimes wild and a bit crazy), not necessarily be realistic and down to Earth all the time. This is a perfect job for science. We need to keep looking beyond what happens tomorrow. Otherwise tomorrow might never come.

Our brave new world

Had an opportunity to introduce the 7-year old to a piece of ancient technology the other day. A typewriter. Manual, of course. For fun, we started writing a story about vampires. Had to xxx out a few words when we went wrong, but it generally went quite well. In fact, we had a great time. The comforting clatter of the letters as they hit the page, the joyful bing at the end of each line, and the simple fact that you had to apply a bit of force with each stroke. Not touch-typing exactly... you certainly get some exercise!

         The mechanics of writing have changed beyond recognition in the last couple of decades. And with this the creative process. It used to be that you had to think through things very carefully before committing anything to paper. Otherwise you ended up having to do tedious and time-consuming rewrites of page after page. There was of course the original cut-and-paste, involving scissors and glue, but this was a sticky exercise and in the end you had to retype everything anyway. Writing may have been much slower in that era, but after numerous revisions the final product tended to be well crafted.

         I am old enough to remember the transition to WYSIWYG, when computers were first able to show the writing on the screen exactly as it would appear on the printed paper. What a breakthrough! At the same time, this was the first subtle step away from the focus on the words. You suddenly had to worry about the font, the layout and other aspects that had been the typesetter's job in the olden days. This speeded up the step from writing to publishing enormously, and the ability to move swathes of text around at will certainly removed some of the agony of the creative process. No more messy rewrites. Of course, you had to remember to do regular backups on those funny floppy disks. I guess I still have some of those in a drawer somewhere... Not sure what to do with them now.

         Fast forward another 20 years or so and you find yourself in the brave new era of the internet, facebook, twitter and mobile texting. The way we communicate has changed completely. Instant gratification is the order of the day. If I can't have it immediately, then I can't be bothered. Carefully crafted hand-written letters have been replaced by emails, often without either proper greeting or polite goodbye. Grammar is old hat and who can be bothered to edit? It’s all gone in an instant, anyway. The next status update is more important.

         This is liberating and frustrating at the same time. Anyone can write and publish just about anything, and people can access it wherever they may be in the world more or less immediately. Great! But what happened to the craft? Proper story telling? Once you get used to life in 140 characters or less, why would you bother with War and Peace? I know I should not complain because I find much of this entertaining, but at the same time...

         The weeds in the internet garden are growing rapidly and it is getting harder for the more interesting and unique plants to get any daylight. I’m not suggesting it is time for censorship or even selective weeding. It should be up to the individual to carry out the proper quality control. The problem is that this does not seem to happen at the moment. Hopefully, normal services will be resumed before too long.

         In the meantime, you can have a laugh at my expense and perhaps the hypocrisy of this rant. My “epic masterpiece” Professor Kompressor is free from Amazon until 8 April. The book is aimed at kids of all ages and I think it is quite funny. Well worth the current price, at least!

Here's the download link:

http://authl.it/B009TQ73VK

Have to stop now, because I’ve been told to get back to work on the vampire story. On the typewriter, of course. How else would we do it?

Not so heavy after all

Professor Bullfinch, with his constant companion, Dr Grimes, spent more and more time in the laboratory testing and analyzing the anti-gravity liquid. It became clear that whatever was painted with the liquid resisted gravity and would fly out away from earth.

From Danny Dunn and the anti-gravity paint

A while ago I tried to figure out how one would best control a small black hole. It was a thought experiment, of course, but thinking about it was quite interesting. I decided that what was required was a bit of antigravity, something that made gravity push instead of pull. Should be easy, right? At the end of the day, I figured that antigravity paint would be the perfect solution to my problem.

         At first, this seemed quite far-fetched. Crazy enough that no one would have thought about it before? Not at all! In fact, the exact same idea formed the basis for the first in the series of Danny Dunn books I mentioned in an earlier post. This irked me a bit, because I (obviously) would have liked to claim the idea for myself. But, instead of writing to the patent office, I ended up ordering the out of print Danny Dunn book from 1959. Read it, enjoyed it and generally felt less grumpy about the whole thing.

         The idea of a material that repels gravity, and which can be used to propel space rockets, is obviously much older. It famously goes back to the Victorian days and H.G. Wells’ 1901 masterpiece The first men in the moon. The key to that story is a gravity blocking substance called "Cavorite” after its inventor. A similar idea was exploited even earlier, in 1894, by J.J. Astor in his book A journey in other worlds. Astor was an interesting character. Extremely rich he died on the Titanic and his book (even though it is set in outer space) provides an interesting perspective on how people in that era viewed other civilizations and cultures.

         So what exactly is antigravity? It's obviously just gravity with the sign wrong! The basic idea is to create an object that does not experience gravity. This might not seem too difficult, but gravity is quite special in that it always attracts. The basic reason is clear once you compare to electromagnetism. Electric charges come with different signs. Like signs repel, but opposites attract. In contrast, gravity only has one "charge", the mass of the object, and it is always positive. So... no repulsion. Unless you think creatively.

         The scientific quest for antigravity has had intriguing twists and turns. An entertaining angle relates to the successful businessman Roger Babson who formed the so-called Gravity Research Foundation in 1948. The aim was to study ways to reduce the effects of gravity. From the view of mainstream science the efforts were initially on the cranky side of respectable, but at the same time the Foundation arranged various conferences that were attended by quite "reasonable" people. As time passed, the Foundation turned its attention to trying to understand gravity better rather than controlling it. The main activities stopped when Babson died in 1967, but the organization is still running an annual gravity essay contest. The stated aim remains to figure out antigravity, but most of the submitted "stories" negotiate a safer territory. The prize-winning essays are often entertaining and serious in equal measure. The aim is obviously not fiction, but the essay format (and perhaps the lack of peer review) suggests a looser reign than usual. In recent years the contributions have tended to present quite serious science and you will find top quality scientists (including a Nobel laureate) among the past winners.

         I have mixed feeling about this gradual change. On the one hand, it is a positive sign that the serious side of science conquers the territory of wild speculation. At the same time, one has to be wary of group-think and the risk that everyone starts running in the same direction. Without creative thinking how do we discover the future? We had better not forget that the best ideas often seem just a bit absurd at first. I mean, think about the curved space and wonky time of Einstein's relativity. Weird and wonderful at the same time.

         In that spirit, how about this?

         Anti-gravity yoga!

         At least it would be relaxing.

Listen to the Universe

“There’s no doubt about it,” the Professor decided. “No doubt, what-so-ever. I really need to build one of those things.”

            Professor Kompressor had been following the story as it developed. With keen interest he had kept himself up to date as scientists tried to catch elusive gravity signals from outer space. He had shared their joy at the final breakthrough. This was the proof everyone had been waiting for. Space was indeed curved and time was wonky, just like Albert Einstein predicted all those years ago. The leaders of the effort had started out more than four decades earlier, fuelled by the enthusiasm of youth. Now they were old men, ready for retirement.

            It was a fascinating story. As an inventor the Professor was particularly keen on the technical aspects. The instruments that had been designed represented an amazing achievement. The task had seemed completely unreasonable, yet science had prevailed. Now he wanted to be part of it, share the adventure.

            Professor Kompressor went straight to the inventing studio and started putting his own device together. In principle, this was easy because he could follow the blueprints from the scientist’s instrument. In practice, it was almost impossible because the Professor worked on a tight budget. He had to make do with the materials that were available to him. This meant cutting corners and finding imaginative solutions, but this was just what Professor Kompressor was good at.

            The final construction did not look like much, a chaotic birds nest of cables of many different colours connecting various monitors and odd-looking control panels. Green laser light bounced off a few mirrors, while sensors monitored the distance the light had travelled. That was pretty much it.

            Without any real expectation that the device would work, the Professor flicked the power switch. He put on a pair of headphones to monitor the machine's output.

            At first all he could hear was noise.

            Then, all of a sudden... he started laughing.

            At that point Maud walked into the room. She’d heard him working from next door and wanted to ask if he would like a cup of tea. Three lumps of sugar and a splash of milk, as usual. She was surprised to find the Professor wearing a massive pair of headphones and laughing like he had just been told the best joke ever.

            “My goodness,” she started... “My dear Professor, what are you doing?”

            “Oh Maud,” the Professor answered, “I’m listening.”

            “I’m listening... to the Universe.”

            "And it’s amazing...”