Beggars of discovery

"Nobody writes songs about us," one 2003 Nobel Laureate lamented. I heard this from him watching the BBC’s "Nobel Minds" a couple of weeks ago where they had this year’s Nobel Science Awardees in a round table being interviewed about the nature of discovery.

"Vincent," or more popularly known as "Starry, Starry Night," was written and composed by Don McLean as a tribute to Vincent Van Gogh. I think it came as close as it could to the nature of artistic creation expressed in a painter’s world. However, I am inclined to agree with the Nobel Laureate that no popular song has yet been written about a scientist. I think I can guess part of the reason why. In "Vincent," looking at his Starry Night painting, McLean sings: "Starry, starry night, paint your palette blue and gray. Look out on a summer’s day, with eyes that know the darkness in my soul. Shadows on the hill…"

With science, however, we can take, for instance, the 2003 Nobel Winner for Chemistry, Roderick Mackinnon, who elucidated the structure of potassium ion channels which, in simpler terms, reveals to us exactly how electricity is sensed by the potassium channel in living bodies and how it animates the flesh. None of us could move or think without the working of these ions. This is very important because calcium, sodium and potassium ions are known to open up when voltage is administered to them and cause a behavior in our bodies. As you can imagine, they hold the key to discovering how to treat muscular diseases and cardiac arrythmia (heartbeat irregularities). But how do you sing about the potassium ion channel? I saw a molecular snapshot of the said potassium ion channel in question and tried to burst out in song, and this is what came out: (oh heck, just borrow the tune of "Starry, Starry Night")

"Channel, channel "’iums"

Calcium, sodium, potassium

Voltage hung in colored hues

Like a snowflake of diffracted X-ray blues."

You see the problem right there. I can imagine your faces contorting and your eardrums clamming up. It does not move you like "Vincent" does, does it? Not to mention the fact that earth-shaking science discoveries like this one make for terrible lyrics.

I am not sure about science as song material although Sesame Street and other children’s educational programs are successful at this on the level of children. But that is because children are far more open to the nature of discovery than adults. In the BBC show, the scientists were unanimous in expressing their deep wonder at looking at an aspect of Nature that no one has ever seen before. This is what hooked me on to listening to the show and delighting in it. It was not only the great science discoveries they have accomplished which earned them their Nobels but that they possess that deep, meaningful characteristic of what makes us human, which is that we quest, we discover and somehow we are made fully alive by it! We seem to be the only species on the planet who cannot get over the fact that we are here and that we may be nothing in the physical scale of the vast universe but we are "big" enough to understand as much from what is inside the littlest thing in Nature – in subatomic particles and into the farthest reaches of the yet observable universe. And I love to hear scientists talk about what it feels like to discover because not all of us could discover an aspect of Nature for the first time but the chance to hear them talk with a language I can understand and have a feel for as a human being, in terms of the spirit of deep and persistent questing, is something non-scientists need to hear so that we do not feel like beggars of discovery.

I refuse to be a beggar of discovery. It is like what New York Times writer Michael Pollan wrote in his acclaimed book, "The Botany of Desire." He recounted how his kid tasted chocolate for the first time and had the expression on his face that seemed to say, "Your world contains this? From this day forward I shall dedicate my life to it." It is also what my five-year-old niece asked me recently with all the zest and thrill she could muster in her being: "Tita, have you ever in your life tasted snow cone?"  When I said "Yes," she suggested that we experience it together soon. I agreed and told her that yes, a snow cone experience between a niece and her aunt is one of the finer things in life and that I promise to take her to a snow cone booth soon. We are not responsible for why and how Nature works and very few of us will ever be close to science discoveries. But by realizing it is in our nature as human beings to quest, we appreciate the works of scientists among us and they do not need to be beggars of our appreciation nor should non-scientists feel like beggars of discovery.

That is my New Year’s wish for everyone, that we refuse the tendency, at all levels, to be beggars of discovery. I am not just talking about Nobel stuff but the simple clear-minded way science affords us that is useful in approaching everyday things. We have the power to know and understand. Science clears our minds of cobwebs. No one human being can know everything there is to know about the world and about life, and maybe, it is ultimately unknowable but that is not the point. The point is you are here, with this one shot at being alive to enjoy, learn and do other non-scientific and meaningful things like loving, to fully explore what it means to be human and fully alive.

I love chocolates and I found out that in sample-sized M&M’s, there is a science trivia written at the back of each small pack. I imagined my New Year’s M&M package to say this: "And best of all, when before, you found yourself setting out from this secret place in your mind to this majestic universe, you will actually find you are in the universe and the universe is in you." Would you really pop a blue M&M so quickly after tasting that mystery in your mind?

I wish you wild peace and all kinds of discoveries for your mind this New Year!

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