Ripples

In my old age, I see that life itself is often more fantastic and terrible than the stories we believed as children, and that perhaps there is no harm in finding magic among the trees. — Eowyn Ivey, The Snow Child

If you pay very close attention to the news media it is possible to feel that all is about to be lost; that we are going down for the last time, each of us assigned to our individually numbered seat, peering out our Plexiglas portal at doomsday ex machina. Our plans and profits will almost certainly be spoiled when a great meteor unexpectedly strikes the Earth and reduces our paper thin civilization to vacant promises and unfulfilled expectations.

I was in the midst of just such positive thoughts when fate intervened in the form of our attendance at Science Night at the local Middle School. As we approached the school grounds I imagined the entire area bathed in a blue glow, a Spielbergian aura whose very existence would hint at the possibility of otherworldly encounters. I fully expected to find the school swarming with gray men, furry Chewbaccas,or fearsome tripods from Mars. What I experienced was far more astounding than mere Hollywood artifice. Science Night is a remarkable initiative by the school to allow students to hear from and interact with some of the Research Triangle’s leading practitioners of science, business and academia.

I would have given my eye teeth to have this kind of opportunity available to me in my formative years. But sadly my Gym teacher was also the Math teacher; the Chemistry teacher subbed for the History teacher and vice versa. We all tried our best, teacher and student lo those many years ago, but in the end it proved too much for our weary instructors, last seen multitasking themselves into oblivion. The schools of my time and place might well have shouted, “You’re on your own!” as we drifted away, diffuse and fragile as leaves on sand.

But on Science Night we are reminded that imperfect beings can still imagine and do great things. That night my kids learned of the unlimited potential of fusion energy – quite literally lightning in a (magnetic) bottle – from a researcher who has worked on the Tokamak cutting edge. We traveled to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands to commune with the spirit of Darwin and see the connectedness of life on Earth. We talked to the actual developer of the IBM Thinkpad. He passed around the parts of the computer to show us that a computer is more than just a machine; it is also the physics, math, engineering, and business tradeoffs needed to bring a new product to market. We peered into ourselves and our genetic structure. We made DNA and marveled at those little strands of encoded life.

All these innovations and concepts were made real by the scientists who stood before us; who in turn stood on the shoulders of giants; and so on, like strands of a massive DNA molecule connecting generations in the disciplined art of discovery. The authenticity of these scientists and researchers and their individual and collective accomplishments was and is so much richer than the video games we play, the movies we watch, the fantasies we read. If we learned nothing else, we learned that the future is ours to imagine; to discover; to make.

A pebble strikes a glassy pond and the ripples roll out in concentric rings, fated to touch distant shores. That night another kind of pebble fell and started our children (and at least one formally pessimistic older fellow) on a profound and wondrous journey to places unknown.