LIMITED HORIZONS?

Put a little science in your life

By Brian Greene

Published: June 1, 2008

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A couple of years ago I received a letter from an American soldier in Iraq. The letter began by saying that, as we've all become painfully aware, serving on the front lines is physically exhausting and emotionally debilitating. But the reason for his writing was to tell me that in that hostile and lonely environment, a book I'd written had become a kind of lifeline. As the book is about science - one that traces physicists' search for nature's deepest laws - the soldier's letter might strike you as, well, odd.

But it's not. Rather, it speaks to the powerful role science can play in giving life context and meaning. At the same time, the soldier's letter emphasized something I've increasingly come to believe: America's educational system fails to teach science in a way that allows students to integrate it into their lives.

When we consider the ubiquity of cell phones, iPods, personal computers and the Internet, it's easy to see how science is woven into the fabric of our day-to-day activities. When we benefit from MRI devices, pacemakers and arterial stents, we can immediately appreciate how science affects the quality of our lives. When we assess the state of the world, and identify looming challenges like climate change, global pandemics, security threats and diminishing resources, we don't hesitate in turning to science to gauge the problems and find solutions.

And when we look at the wealth of opportunities hovering on the horizon - stem cells, genomic sequencing, longevity research, nanoscience, quantum computers, space technology - we realize how crucial it is to cultivate a general public that can engage with scientific issues; there's simply no other way that as a society we will be prepared to make informed decisions on a range of issues that will shape the future.

These are the standard reasons many would give in explaining why science matters.

But the reason science really matters runs deeper still. Science is a way of life. Science is a perspective. Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding in a manner that's precise, predictive and reliable - a transformation, for those lucky enough to experience it, that is empowering and emotional. To be able to think through and grasp explanations - for everything from why the sky is blue to how life formed on earth - not because they are declared dogma but rather because they reveal patterns confirmed by experiment and observation, is one of the most precious of human experiences. As a practicing scientist, I know this from my own work and study.

But I also know that you don't have to be a scientist for science to be transformative. I've seen children's eyes light up as I've told them about black holes and the big bang. I've spoken with high school dropouts who've stumbled on popular science books about the human genome project, and then returned to school with new-found purpose.

And in that letter from Iraq, the soldier told me how learning about relativity and quantum physics in the dusty and dangerous environs of greater Baghdad kept him going because it revealed a deeper reality of which we're all a part.

It's striking that science is still widely viewed as an isolated body of largely esoteric knowledge that sometimes shows up in the "real" world in the form of technological or medical advances. In reality, science is a language of hope and inspiration, providing discoveries that instill a sense of connection to our lives and our world.

I've spoken with so many people over the years whose encounters with science in school left them thinking of it as cold, distant and intimidating. What a shame. Like a life without music, art or literature, a life without science is bereft of something that gives experience a rich and otherwise inaccessible dimension.

It's one thing to go outside on a crisp, clear night and marvel at a sky full of stars. It's another to marvel not only at the spectacle but to recognize that those stars are the result of exceedingly ordered conditions 13.7 billion years ago at the moment of the big bang. It's another still to understand how those stars act as nuclear furnaces that supply the universe with carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, the raw material of life as we know it.

And it's yet another level of experience to realize that those stars account for less than 4 percent of what's out there - the rest being of an unknown composition, so-called dark matter and energy, which researchers are now trying to divine.