Here we stand, in this illusive yet beautiful reality. The reality where a rather insipid star fuels the fantasies of residents of yet another chunk of rock we all call home. The reality with answers craving the most profound of our questions. The reality which crafts the wonders of billions of its possible inhabitants. Welcome to your reality.
But the one thing we're taught for good: this reality is, however, brimmed with mysteries far beyond anything we've grasped; secrets far bizarre than the wildest flights of our imagination. Where are we again? In this tiny little chunk we affectionately call earth. But then, what makes this chunk so distinguished? We all know the answer: it's its tenants, and their quest to understand everything real with the might of reason, logic, and mathematics – the quest they call science. From primitive cavemen to diligent scientists, we've certainly come a long way. This way would one day, possibly millions to billions of years later, find a dead end. It will then be our responsibility, to make this end a whole new beginning.
But there's a twist: every being turns out to be a mere traveler – with hardly a grain of time. But the saga isn't left incomplete: stanch mavericks renounce to submit this elegant reality to ignominious ignorance. What turns out to be the reward? History has it: everything that transformed our purpose of existence, and that sense of satisfaction which overwhelms a scientist.
"But the world isn't much of a fairy tale", I presume you'd be saying. Indeed, it isn't. But how legitimate is it, after all, to have Albert Einstein to blame for nuclear warfare and related episodes? The point I'm trying to place in firm frames is that science is merely the quest for knowledge: it isn't really plausible to blame its abuse back on its own self. It's just like spanking Bob (for reasons utterly incomprehensible), and blaming it back on him: if Bob didn't exist at the first place, he wouldn't have ever got spanked. Science is all about knowledge, which could do no harm on its own. And if applied righteously, we all know what to expect: the modern way of life. Who would expect you to read this if we didn't have a grasp on electricity and hence, circuits, transistors, IC chips, microprocessors, computers, and internet? And as I shall now lay with emphasis, it would be the only way around the big, dead end; and the prologue of these promising telltales is far from estrangement. Increased life expectancy, developed medical processes and undertakings, enhanced standards of living with cutting edge comforts of the 21st century, and more: they all speak the one language. It's ironic that there are folks who don't really get more than a few flights of 'fantasy': and it's excruciating to realize that these fantasies don't appear very distinguished from what the prosperous may call nightmares. But then again, science just can't be blamed: an idea is an idea no matter where it comes from, and these ideas are the key ingredients to our understanding of the cosmos around.
One may perhaps wonder, what's so 'beautiful' in science when compared to artistic masterpieces? Isn't it supposed to be a puddle of numbers and variables and technical terms and all things similar? Are the ones motivated just, 'nerd zombies' with no life to spare? These questions are well answered technically, but let's just embrace a more aesthetic philosophy: every little thing we can think of doing with electricity comes from a set of four grand equations, which can be put down in a small, scrap paper and carried almost anywhere. Isn't it beautiful? Tiny charged balls we call electrons pass right through multiple, distinct (but appropriately placed) slits simultaneously. Isn't it beautiful? Particles borrowing energy from their own future to penetrate physical barriers. Isn't it beautiful? Colossal stars being born somewhere in a dull dust cloud. Isn't it beautiful? Curious little beings in the middle of nowhere, looking for answers to these questions. Isn't that beautiful? A physicist would sure call it 'elegant'*. Anyone, smart or dumb, may very well be fixated: a little thought, devotion, and ambition is all it takes, but the reward is beyond description: the sweet, much deserved sense of satisfaction.
So here we are, in this illusive turf of everything real.
*as physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson considers
This is Nasim, thank you for reading.
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