I have this ongoing fascination with reading science articles. I often understand little about the subject and retain even less of the material than I started with. Up to 10 minutes after reading an article I am fairly certain that I will retain about -1% of the content; not 1% of the words, like ‘the’ and ‘a’, but 1% less than I started with; hence the negative (-).
Like the hours spent on Monday reading about the flu: H1N1, H5N1 and H3N2 strains that are the common bane of the flu seasons for humans (although there are more) and how pig have virtually nothing to do with ‘Swine Flu” other than being carriers, just like us. Did you know that H and N refer to protein chains that makeup the outer layer of the virus? And now I’ve forgotten who I am.
Next up: the Hidden Riddle of Shapes Solved (quoted below)
“‘Most people thought it would never be solved in their lifetime,’ adds Mark Hovey”
See, that’s where you are wrong. I was reasonable certain that I would have solved it in my lifetime but now someone else has gone and done me a huge favour. And saved me quite a bit of stress and performance anxiety to boot.
“But it quickly became clear that manifolds with a Kervaire invariant equal to 1 exist in dimensions 2, 6 and 14, and examples for dimensions 30 and 62 were found within a few years.”
Ahem… yeah. I was just going to suggest this … And for anyone actually reading the article they will recognize that the statement quoted above is not related to the solution but, instead, the point when my eyes got crossed and I needed a stiff drink to regain my vision.
Seriously though, science may sound like magic and we as a modern society and civilization may believe that we know everything that there is to know about at least one given subject but the fact is: we are only a smidgen more knowledgable about anything than we were at the beginning of time. Compare what we know with what we don’t know and realize that the pool of ‘what we know’ is a lonely, cold, isolated and dark place.
Science is not a magic bullet. It is not the answer. It does not cure all or, really, explain virtually anything.
Science is important and being ignorant is bad. I know that the Riddle of Shape article is not intended for anyone, save the battle hardened mathematical wizard (or apprentice) , but I think we can all spend a little time questioning what is happening around us and challenging our perceptions. We can strive to learn something every day.
For anyone interested I will be spending the next few weeks here at the Understanding Science web site. Feel free to join me.
And just an FYI: the averge flu will kill tens and hundreds of thousands of people … every year.
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