When we go to sleep do we worry that the sun may not rise tomorrow? Do we worry about the fact that suddenly the oxygen in the atmosphere will reduce by 50%? Do we worry about the fact that the gravity working on us will be different at different times of the day? Since the time the thinking man evolved it used its basic instinct to understand that there is some order in nature though he did not know how or why. For him even without understanding anything of it, he knew that tomorrow morning the sun will rise, he will breathe the same way, and he will walk with the same effort. Through his curiosity, struggle and basic analysis he discovered the basic unchanging fundamentals of nature working around him, the order in nature.
In the last 500 years science as we know today has discovered these laws governing the nature, that there is no magic in it. But this is not the end of the road.
But some things are still unpredictable, like the weather. With the present technology we can forecast the weather to a great extent but cannot fully predict it over longer duration. We cannot say how many fruits a tree will bear next year. We cannot calculate where the next flood or famine will come. We don’t know what new diseases will occur next year. With all the analysis based on the most advanced super computers some things are still not possible to predict accurately. There is chaos and uncertainty in the nature also.
Science is too intimating and boring the common man and he has better things to do. We know about Newton’s apple and Einstein’s e=mc2 but only that much as don’t need its use in daily life. The same way do we discuss about Dante or Descartes philosophy over dinner? We feel it to be too academic and leave it to the intellectuals. With all the tools of science and technology we have now like the TV, mobile and internet we are completely engulfed in the world of daily trivia. We don’t have the time or inclination to learn anything that is too taxing on our brains. The daily grind to earn bread and materialistic gains is so overwhelming that indulging in science math and philosophy seems to be a waste of time or a luxury which we cannot afford.
But sometimes the curiosity within us rises from deep within. When we take a stroll after dinner and look up to the night sky and see the stars, our mind wonders whether there is some life out there. When we see a shooting star sometimes we wonder from where did it come. This curiosity becomes the bedrock of science. Do we know why a ballet performer rotates slowly when she stretches her hand out? Or why the stone thrown towards the sky goes up faster and falls back slower?
Great mind over centuries have worked hard to understand these principles of nature. But still we are only scratching the surface of knowledge. We don’t know exactly how life originated on earth or are we alone or the exact origin of universe or how so many variables fell in the right place at the right time to sustain life on earth. The list is endless.
And we don’t even know whether science is the best way or the only way that will take us to the ultimate truth.
‘The day the younger generation will face the scientists instead of a movie star, the next leap of science will not take place”
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