My Place in the Cosmos

2008-01-25T18:55:00.000-08:00

Through this book I was given a hint - a tiny glimpse - of the elegant, complex harmony of string theory. The pure philosophical beauty of the elemental oscillating string is enough of a glimpse to satisfy a significant fraction of the imagination. The idea makes a complete loop back to the time of Pythagoras, and his notion of musica universalis, an overarching harmony, or order, to the universe.

Though I am obviously still in the dark regarding most of the mathematics of it, I can think of two passages in the book that, through their simplified analogies, have given me considerable insight. The first passage deals with the photoelectric effect, a property of metals wherein the color (i.e. the frequency) of oncoming light determines whether or not electrons are ejected and how much energy they gain. At first it might no make sense why light of immense intensity but of the wrong color will not give the particles enough energy, if any at all. Greene beckoned the author to imagine an infinite number of children trapped in a basement; to escape, they must pay an 85cent fee. If a sympathetic person throws down money in denominations lower than one dollar (nickels, dimes etc.), then any given child will be even lucky to get one coin, since there are so many children, the chance that a child will catch two coins is almost nil. Only when the man starts throwing loonies can some children leave, since they catch one coin and have enough money to leave. In the same way, it does not matter how many photons (particles of light) are beamed at the metal, (i.e. how bright the light is), it is only when they are the right frequency (color) do they poses enough energy to knock off some electrons from the metal.

The second example taught the concept of inverse proportionality by relating it to a stock price scenario.

The main purpose such popular science books have in one’s life is to give a general glimpse, or awareness, of what goes on in the world. One must not mistake this general glimpse with supreme understanding, and it is always a burden to my ears to hear people speculating on themes of which they obviously do not have a deep understanding of. That is the paradox of popular science literature, that it is an efficient method for broadly educating a society, and yet leads so many into false conceptions of understanding and, as a result, loss of motivation for true learning.

The nonchalance with which superstring theory rendered the ugly, 'convenient' theories that suffered from lack of a field of view obsolete reminded me of an era in my life - when I was in middle school. In part this era was governed by the realization that school teachers (mostly in sciences) often hid knowledge from students in order to ensure some easy transition through the steps of education. Sometimes knowledge was simplified to the end product of a lie. But this is a method of education, entailing the refinement of a simple, often incorrect grasp of the world into a more correct one (as maturity of thought allows). Apart from my despair upon learning of this inevitability, I learned always to broaden my field of view, my perspective on a subject, so as not to be led into unnecessary simplification. Constantly I began to seek the union of seemingly disjunct notions. If the teaching of math contradicted somehow with how science was taught, I would find the knowledge capable of explaining them both.

The Music of the Spheres

My Place in the Cosmos