A few days ago, the scientists at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) commenced what is being touted as the largest and most expensive scientific experiment in history. They have activated a device known as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometre long (yes, 27 kilometres) tube super-cooled to 271 degrees below zero (that’s colder than much of outer space) which circulates sub-atomic particles within itself at extremely high speeds (approximately 99.999% the speed of light) and smashes them together in the hope of constructing a working model of the universe as it existed a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. These statistics alone are mind-boggling. What is even more amazing is that colliding two sub-atomic particles together in such a fashion is similar to (in CERN’s own words) “firing two needles, ten kilometres apart, at each other so that they meet halfway”.
In my opinion, this is truly one of those great times in scientific history that very few people have the privilege of witnessing, with other such moments including the 1919 solar eclipse experiment that proved Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to be correct and the legendary incident of an apple falling on Newton’s head (if it ever happened, that is). To me, this experiment is a symbol of how far man can go to satisfy his urge to seek and discover. There is a raw, intense craving that I can feel within these scientists. It is a desire so passionate and so furious, that my own self is humbled in front of it. I feel that the need to know the nature of things is the only thing that distinguishes man from animal and no set of human beings can exemplify this characteristic better than the scientific community.
Therefore, it really infuriated me when I realized how little most people in society knew about this experiment. Even if they did know anything about it, there was a lot of negativity regarding the whole issue. There were some superstitious fools who were convinced that it was the end of the world either because they thought the experiment would go wrong or (far worse), some mysterious omnipotent being (read God) will send down lightning and thunder to wipe out the human race as a punishment for their impunity. The worst (and most saddening) example was the one where a woman in Madhya Pradesh killed herself because she saw something about the experiment on the news and decided that the planet was doomed.
Many others I talked to were critical of the whole idea. Why go through so much trouble? They asked. Why spend so much money and time and effort for so little return? I have a bee in my bonnet with such people. I just hate it when they look at everything from the financial point of view. There are even some who try and convince me that it is criminal to waste so much money on something so trivial when there are millions who are starving. I was fairly outraged at their attitude because I have always supported scientific research and consider statements such as those above as personal attacks upon my beliefs.
However, childish outrage apart, when I introspected on matters again, I realized that some of these points need to be addressed. Most of those who made these arguments were genuinely concerned about what they considered to be an absolute wastage of resources and were demanding answers to their questions. I will get back to addressing the problem of superstition at the end of this article but let me concentrate on the other arguments for now.
So, let’s start the fight. Why should so much money and funding be pumped to answer a trivial question like “Why did the Big Bang occur”? Let me answer that question by saying that ‘trivial’ is a relative term. What one person considers trifling might be the world to another person. Twenty rupees may not mean much to a multi-millionaire but it can mean the difference between life and death to a starving man on the street. Issues such as the Big Bang, the chemistry of stars and ultimately the origin of the universe are not just scientific areas of interest. They are deeply philosophical issues as well and for these scientists (and others like me), gaining a deeper insight into the structure of the universe is another step towards gaining a deeper perspective about one’s own self. It’s about realizing the nature of one’s relationship with the environment in which one exists. Every member of society has the right to use society in a positive way to achieve personal satisfaction. In fact, that is the reason society exists – to provide a mechanism where every individual can maximize his or her own satisfaction as much as possible. For the scientific community, gaining more knowledge leads to such satisfaction.
Of course, society demands something in return. Naturally, it should. Nothing in world is free of cost and if one desires satisfaction, one must pay for it. So what returns does society get from supporting extensive scientific research? Well, firstly, society gets the knowledge acquired from such research. Most of us today do not realize it but almost everything that is a part of our daily life is a result of extensive, often expensive and time-consuming scientific research. Sometimes, the benefits of such research aren’t immediately acquired. When Michael Faraday demonstrated his findings about electricity in front of the King of England, the King chided him for investing in such unnecessary research. Faraday replied that one day, the King would be able to tax people for electricity consumption. It wasn’t until a hundred years later though, that Thomas Edison, Joseph Swan and Tesla pioneered the electrical revolution. Today, Faraday’s prediction has come true. And where would we be without electricity?
Secondly, there are a number of positive side-effects from scientific research. A large number of items that are used in daily life are the spin-offs from scientific research directed elsewhere. The best example of that is CERN’s most famous development – the World Wide Web. The internet started off as a communications network that eased co-ordination between various groups of scientists at the CERN Centre in Switzerland. CERN’s various devices have also been adapted by other organizations for entirely different purposes. For instance, CERN claims that the same method used in their CMS electro-calorimeter to study high energy physics and to search for new sub-atomic particles is used for medical imaging in positron emission tomography (PET) to study body functions and search for cancer.
And thirdly, there’s the educational aspect. Scientific research provides an opportunity for hundreds of bright minds to put their skills to the cutting edge. Scientific research is a challenge that a lot of people relish taking up. It opens up their minds, expands their horizon and provides fresh new perspectives of the world. Scientists have often remarked on how no feeling on earth beats the thrill of discovering some new, something rare and something that no one else has discovered before.
These then are a few arguments on why I feel scientific research should be given a lot of rope. The matter is, to a large amount, a philosophical one, no matter how much one tries to rationalize it and opinion on support for research eventually boils down to the basic ideology of the individual in question. However, though I can understand the scepticism of those who question the rationale behind supporting the cause of science, I refuse to accept their logic. Innovation is what stops any field from turning into a drab, mechanical affair. Such research-driven innovation is what keeps fields like engineering and medicine alive, influencing society directly. Scientific research might even help alleviate the very problems it seems to ignore – poverty, suffering and deprivation.
Before I conclude though, let me just add one last point. The one aspect of this affair that really disheartens me is how ignorant most of us are of scientific research and even science in general. There are news channels that promote experiments like the LHC Collision as ‘the end of the world’. There are films like Love Story 2050 which promote the notion that astrology and astronomy are the same. There are people who commit suicide on such issues. I really think we ought to make ourselves more aware of what is happening around us. Otherwise, you might be the next person considering suicide to be a good option.
In my opinion, this is truly one of those great times in scientific history that very few people have the privilege of witnessing, with other such moments including the 1919 solar eclipse experiment that proved Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to be correct and the legendary incident of an apple falling on Newton’s head (if it ever happened, that is). To me, this experiment is a symbol of how far man can go to satisfy his urge to seek and discover. There is a raw, intense craving that I can feel within these scientists. It is a desire so passionate and so furious, that my own self is humbled in front of it. I feel that the need to know the nature of things is the only thing that distinguishes man from animal and no set of human beings can exemplify this characteristic better than the scientific community.
Therefore, it really infuriated me when I realized how little most people in society knew about this experiment. Even if they did know anything about it, there was a lot of negativity regarding the whole issue. There were some superstitious fools who were convinced that it was the end of the world either because they thought the experiment would go wrong or (far worse), some mysterious omnipotent being (read God) will send down lightning and thunder to wipe out the human race as a punishment for their impunity. The worst (and most saddening) example was the one where a woman in Madhya Pradesh killed herself because she saw something about the experiment on the news and decided that the planet was doomed.
Many others I talked to were critical of the whole idea. Why go through so much trouble? They asked. Why spend so much money and time and effort for so little return? I have a bee in my bonnet with such people. I just hate it when they look at everything from the financial point of view. There are even some who try and convince me that it is criminal to waste so much money on something so trivial when there are millions who are starving. I was fairly outraged at their attitude because I have always supported scientific research and consider statements such as those above as personal attacks upon my beliefs.
However, childish outrage apart, when I introspected on matters again, I realized that some of these points need to be addressed. Most of those who made these arguments were genuinely concerned about what they considered to be an absolute wastage of resources and were demanding answers to their questions. I will get back to addressing the problem of superstition at the end of this article but let me concentrate on the other arguments for now.
So, let’s start the fight. Why should so much money and funding be pumped to answer a trivial question like “Why did the Big Bang occur”? Let me answer that question by saying that ‘trivial’ is a relative term. What one person considers trifling might be the world to another person. Twenty rupees may not mean much to a multi-millionaire but it can mean the difference between life and death to a starving man on the street. Issues such as the Big Bang, the chemistry of stars and ultimately the origin of the universe are not just scientific areas of interest. They are deeply philosophical issues as well and for these scientists (and others like me), gaining a deeper insight into the structure of the universe is another step towards gaining a deeper perspective about one’s own self. It’s about realizing the nature of one’s relationship with the environment in which one exists. Every member of society has the right to use society in a positive way to achieve personal satisfaction. In fact, that is the reason society exists – to provide a mechanism where every individual can maximize his or her own satisfaction as much as possible. For the scientific community, gaining more knowledge leads to such satisfaction.
Of course, society demands something in return. Naturally, it should. Nothing in world is free of cost and if one desires satisfaction, one must pay for it. So what returns does society get from supporting extensive scientific research? Well, firstly, society gets the knowledge acquired from such research. Most of us today do not realize it but almost everything that is a part of our daily life is a result of extensive, often expensive and time-consuming scientific research. Sometimes, the benefits of such research aren’t immediately acquired. When Michael Faraday demonstrated his findings about electricity in front of the King of England, the King chided him for investing in such unnecessary research. Faraday replied that one day, the King would be able to tax people for electricity consumption. It wasn’t until a hundred years later though, that Thomas Edison, Joseph Swan and Tesla pioneered the electrical revolution. Today, Faraday’s prediction has come true. And where would we be without electricity?
Secondly, there are a number of positive side-effects from scientific research. A large number of items that are used in daily life are the spin-offs from scientific research directed elsewhere. The best example of that is CERN’s most famous development – the World Wide Web. The internet started off as a communications network that eased co-ordination between various groups of scientists at the CERN Centre in Switzerland. CERN’s various devices have also been adapted by other organizations for entirely different purposes. For instance, CERN claims that the same method used in their CMS electro-calorimeter to study high energy physics and to search for new sub-atomic particles is used for medical imaging in positron emission tomography (PET) to study body functions and search for cancer.
And thirdly, there’s the educational aspect. Scientific research provides an opportunity for hundreds of bright minds to put their skills to the cutting edge. Scientific research is a challenge that a lot of people relish taking up. It opens up their minds, expands their horizon and provides fresh new perspectives of the world. Scientists have often remarked on how no feeling on earth beats the thrill of discovering some new, something rare and something that no one else has discovered before.
These then are a few arguments on why I feel scientific research should be given a lot of rope. The matter is, to a large amount, a philosophical one, no matter how much one tries to rationalize it and opinion on support for research eventually boils down to the basic ideology of the individual in question. However, though I can understand the scepticism of those who question the rationale behind supporting the cause of science, I refuse to accept their logic. Innovation is what stops any field from turning into a drab, mechanical affair. Such research-driven innovation is what keeps fields like engineering and medicine alive, influencing society directly. Scientific research might even help alleviate the very problems it seems to ignore – poverty, suffering and deprivation.
Before I conclude though, let me just add one last point. The one aspect of this affair that really disheartens me is how ignorant most of us are of scientific research and even science in general. There are news channels that promote experiments like the LHC Collision as ‘the end of the world’. There are films like Love Story 2050 which promote the notion that astrology and astronomy are the same. There are people who commit suicide on such issues. I really think we ought to make ourselves more aware of what is happening around us. Otherwise, you might be the next person considering suicide to be a good option.
