Learning science without studying

I read a review of the book The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins that said, “This book is primarily aimed at teenagers …” That was enough of an invitation for me to buy that book. I am not a teenager sure, but I am almost insatiably curious when it comes to even tentative explanations of nature, particularly of the kind the author is famous for. In a sense, then, the book is directed at 58 year old teenagers like me.

The book in its hardbound form carries delightful illustrations by Dave McKean I understand, but it costs a bundle. I settled for the illustration-free paperback version at a much lower price (Blackswan edition, ISBN 978-0-552-77890-9) content enough to extend into the pages of this book my imagination from the luxurious illustrations in The Ancestor’s Tale by the same author. I cannot be sure that I had made a judicious choice, but having made one I will be content. The words in the book illustrate that I may have lost only a little.

I will be taking a brief tour of the pages of the book, starting with a sentence that I believe should become a venerable quote over time:

One of the great virtues of science is that scientists know when they don’t know the answer to something.

True, the above sentiment has been expressed hundreds of times by dozens of scientists and philosophers too, even if not in these exact words. But the sentiment deserves to be repeated a million times in hundreds of thousands of ways. Hence it finds its way into my personal book of quotes.

The book has twelve chapters addressing various natural systems and giving scientific explanations for them. Most chapters start by mentioning a number of myths, sourcing widely – from Australia, Arctic, the Nordic countries, Europe, the Americas, China and, of course, Africa. Indian myths, in my opinion are very sparsely represented. No, I am not jealous that our stories have been ignored; rather, I find our stories so imaginative that given the international audience that Dawkins’s books reach, these would have added to the force of his arguments, unfortunately against the myths!

Indeed, these myths range not only worldwide but also from the historic to the current, including what we dismissively tag as “urban myths”, the ones that have the greatest ability to spread in a large population living in a dense pattern – the cities. Remember idols of Lord Ganesha developing a sudden taste for milk!

First, let me tell you about a chapter, besides the first that merely sets the tone of the book, that does not have a myth in its initial paragraphs – the one titled What are things made of? Dawkins tackles myths about the smallest of the small at the end of this chapter by saying he found it hard to locate myths at the scale of atoms and smaller. He notes that, “[T]he fascinating world of the very small never came to the notice of primitive peoples… They had no way of knowing it was there, and so of course they didn’t invent any myths to explain it!” So, I would not be wrong to claim, tongue firmly in cheek, that science was invented to create myths about the very small!

Now, read this sentence: “When you get down to really small things like atoms and nuclei, the distinction between ‘matter’ and ‘empty space’ starts to lose its meaning.” This does sound like a myth, does it not? It must to a teenager, the target reader. Yes, but it is a scientific myth which allows you to expand it to reach scales of everyday life. Taking off from here, he demonstrates in simple terms how air blowing ferociously, say, gale force wind, becomes a solid as far as the pedestrian on the sidewalk is concerned – one cannot walk through. At very small scales, air is a collection of electrons, protons and neutrons and so is a solid. As you scale up they differentiate themselves from each other. But under specific, everyday conditions, air behaves like a solid!

Such simple explanations.

Well, if you think I am making too much of a simple explanation in this case, let me give you another one. How do you distinguish between mass and weight? Most us of have never been in a sustained weightless condition. Everything we experience, our body, the vegetables we buy at the market, the office bag we tote is in terms of weight. True, when the father throws his child in the air only to catch him on the way down, the child experiences weightlessness but only momentarily and this is not an experience that registers, scientifically or otherwise. I am not sure even a bungee jumper realizes that he is weightless as he drops off a bridge. The excitement must be overwhelming. Perhaps parachutists feel weightlessness, but they are such a minuscule lot. Therefore, any conception of mass has to be at the level of a myth for a vast majority of us.

But, it is not so for an orbiting astronaut. A cannon ball will be weightless for her. She can hold the ball without it “falling” because both are “falling”. She will not feel its weight. But it will always have its mass. The thing is, if she tried to heave the cannon ball away from herself she would find herself being pushed back. Why? The cannon ball is not massless, and mass, when accelerated is subjected the laws that carry Newton’s name.

Before reading this particular paragraph in the book, while I understood the difference between mass and weight (the former can be ascertained on earth and only in a comparative sense using a common balance while the latter can be measured for a single object using a spring balance in pre-defined units), I had no clue as to how to argue it out.

The book is full of such simple yet deep explanations, be it about the sun, about rainbows, Doppler Effect, diamonds, evolution, fossils and their absence and on and on. I got thoroughly educated. I learned a lot. Each chapter ended with a question: Was it not magic, of a particular kind, of reality that you read? I had to, despite it being rhetorical, answer the question with a resounding Yes!

The Indian celebration of Teacher’s day fell yesterday. A few days ago I finished reading the book, as usual with marginalia galore. I wanted to send it as a temporary gift for Teacher’s Day to my nephew (I wanted it back) and I was not ashamed that he would easily recognize my level of ignorance. Indeed, I intended to tell him that his generation has learned many things that people of my generation do not yet know, even the basics and even after all these years after having studied the subjects, physics, chemistry, math, biology … I wanted him to learn some new stuff – even for him - that the book must be carrying.

To my horror I realized that at the end of this academic year – only six months away – he will be sitting for the Boards. The Boards! Oh my, how can I interrupt his studies and ask him to learn things, however well-meaning it may be? Does he not have to study continuously? Yes, of course. He will study much but learn almost nothing. Whatever he has truly learned so far is outside of his formal education, with its studies, exams, marks and ranks. So be it.

Why should a teacher not give this book as necessary reading? Because, asking questions out of it may be difficult, for the teacher I hasten to add. The questions are raised and answered in the book but not in any structured way. Actually, as one reads the book questions are raised in the reader’s mind. It is automatic. That is the talent Richard Dawkins has. But, he goes beyond. He draws out the answers too. A true teacher.

Studying is one thing, but learning is another. If only our educators could differentiate, hmmm... Teacher’s Day will truly carry significance then.

Raghuram Ekambaram