This blog is about Science and the new “magical and mysterious” Universe created by the experimental Sciences and Physics in particular.
Science constructs models and theories to provide a coherent interpretation of the natural phenomena observed. Concepts are used to describe the phenomena, and appropriate instruments whether experimental or mathematical are needed for their investigation.
New phenomena require either the reinterpretation of old concepts or the invention of new ones to describe them. Adequate mathematical and experimental tools must be available or have to be developed for their study. The history of science is about the interplay between these two elements of the scientific trade. When they fall out of step in a given field of study, the progress in this field is stalled.
In the physical sciences, concepts and their definitions are tentative. They reflect usage and are proposed as working tools with the possibility of modification and refinement as more information is gathered and as more theoretical understanding is gained. The more fundamental the concept, the less precise its definition; and the need for reviewing and modifying it is more frequent.
I am a Physics teacher from Lebanon. I retired recently after 40 years of teaching at various academic levels. During my early years of teaching, while still more susceptive of time and curriculum pressure, I tended to stick to the textbook recipe, dodging students’ questions or postponing the answers, and quickly moving on to problem solving skills, for fear of wasting “valuable time”. However, there were always some students who were not satisfied with the standard answers in the line of: “mass is a measure of the quantity of matter, or “energy is the capacity to do work”, or “time is what we measure with a clock”.
Statements like these are of course deceptive in their simplicity. Every semester, I had a few students who would insist on pointing out the vagueness of the terms (capacity or ability?), or the circular reasoning behind them, (work for example had already been defined in a circular manner as energy transferred by a force, or time is what a clock measures and clock is periodic motion). From there they would proceed to voice their doubts about the veracity of the whole scientific construct, in line with the general anti-scientific mood which had become prevalent nowadays.
For some deep cultural or psychological reason, students who choose to study Physics tend to see themselves as apprentice philosophers (as they quite rightly should), but who believe in addition that since they are clever enough and they “can think rationally”, there should be definitive complete answers to everything. This, and their lack of historical perspective of the way scientific knowledge changed, evolved and grew, leaves them with the impression that Physics lacks the rigor of Mathematics and for some, the certainty of religion.
Fortunately, Physics did not adopt the rigorous axiomatic structure of mathematics, although attempts were done at the beginning by Descartes and Newton in particular to develop Mechanics as an extension of geometry.
Nonetheless these questions lead me to rethink my own understanding (or lack of it) of the main concepts in physics such as mass, force, energy, time, and go back to the drawing board. In fact, teaching is the best way for learning a subject in depth. I discovered that there was a fascinating field out there that involves learning about how scientific concepts were invented historically from the original writings of the great scientists. After 40 years of teaching, I found out that I had only scratched its surface.
I believe that scientific concepts and statements should not be seen or treated as unexplainable “mysteries” left only for a special group of initiates to decipher. This here is an attempt at explaining, in a simple accessible way, certain features of the world as conceived by physicists.
You will find, in this blog, notes, essays and articles in which I will try to answer some of the questions raised by the students, and other questions as well. For this, I shall trace back the evolution of physical concepts from their origin whenever possible until the present time.
I hope to succeed in shedding some light on some of the scientific “mysteries” and showing that science is a novel state of mind, a way of thinking, an attitude of doubt and curiosity, an adventure that is accessible to anyone with no fear of uncertainty.
Joseph Béchara
Jbechr137@gmail.com
The God particle and other mysteries 