Flip the Table
“Final Frontier” Barbara Fisher
“ Science does not know it’s debt to the imagination”
Science is funny to me. Not funny like a joke, but funny like a practical joke.
We understand certain things to be true: gravity is a thing. Light is a thing. Matter is a thing. We know these things because we test them. We play an elaborate, expensive game of Bullshit, and it keeps us honest. Scientist A makes a claim, after rigorous testing. Scientist B calls Bullshit and tries to disprove Scientist A and so on. Eventually we all agree that Scientist A is correct, and we continue science-ing based on the understanding that Scientist A just revealed. OR, Scientist A is incorrect, and begins the game anew, or Scientist C runs with it.
Sometimes a table is flipped. with discoveries that have us scrambling to prove or disprove everything we thought to be true: Copernicus, van Leeuwenhoek, Curie, Hedy Lamarr, Einstein and so many more, all table flippers.
Now, I studied Chemistry enough to get a minor--and while I considered Chemical Engineering, I knew my weakness was math, or rather my belief that I was bad at math. I love Chemistry because it’s math in 3D. It’s about balance. Negatives draw positives. Imbalance seeks balance. Organic Chemistry taught me that equilibrium is death; that life is about constantly keeping our bodies out of that particular balance, while nature tries to balance all those equations.
Chemistry still fascinates me. But I couldn’t bring myself to make a life in it. Why? Well, I’m an idiot.
I had an insurmountable hangup when it came to diving deeper, though I was always happiest in a Chemistry book. There was my notion of the proximity of the next scientific revolution and the extraordinary rate of discovery as humanity spreads. So many minds, sharper than mine, focused on flipping tables, and I didn’t have the competitive drive for research on that level. But knowing myself, and my tendencies, I would have found myself in a lab somewhere compounding chemicals to make ends meet. That sounded dull. Taking knowns, adding them to knowns. Getting more knowns. And so on.
I was raised on Scientific American by an inventor and scientist whose bedtime stories were all about black holes and life beyond our planet. I lived on a diet of possibilities, intellectual adventures and mad science. My father’s pet project was using light to transmit sound. I sat on his lap as he soldered, tested, and soldered more. Science was bold and brave. Most importantly, it was wonder.
I ended up majoring in Getting Out, and that was that. Regrets? Sometimes. But I give the girl I was some slack, because she certainly had a lot going on when she was making those decisions. My dad lived a lifetime in his workshop in the basement,, and that was for him. It wasn’t for me, and my wonder took me elsewhere on different kinds of adventures.
I find myself thinking of those days as I read more about UAP’s (Unidentified Aerial Phenomina). How they absolutely defy everything we understand about physics, and gravity, and a being’s ability to handle the stress of High-Gravity maneuvers, I have to wonder what tables need to be flipped. Where does all of this fit in with our conventional understandings of most areas of science, and what discoveries lay ahead?
I learned a long time ago that I can not afford to judge, but only guess. I can test those guesses sometimes and encourage others to test as well. But to say “This is impossible” or “I know the answer” is hubris, and the ultimate killer of discovery. And that’s what science is. Wonder.
Wonder flips tables.