The pursuit of science: its motivations

We have been talking about how Feynman influenced our learning of science and towards our scientific imagination – with the help of a mathematical abstract view, Julius Sumner Miller’s exciting science demonstrations … I felt I should continue this stream of thoughts by adding some observations on the pursuit of science. (These are my compilations from the wonderful book “Truth and Beauty” by Professor S. Chandrashekhar, Penguin Books Ltd (1991) – don’t miss to read this book if you happen to come across). I am aware that I am not offering here any concrete thinking on the “pursuit of science” -- but surely it helps to put things in their places, and it invites deeper thinking on this issue.

“The pursuit of science: its motivations” is a difficult topic because of the variety and the range of the motives of the individual scientists; they are as varied as the tastes, the temperaments, and the attitudes of the scientists themselves. Besides, their motivations are subject to substantial changes during the life-times of the scientists. Indeed it is difficult to discern a common denominator! We may consider some examples to get some better ideas on this. Let us think of Albert Michelson: His main preoccupation throughout his life was to measure the velocity of light with increasing precision. His interest came about almost by accident, when the commander of the United states Naval Academy asked him – he was then an instructor at the Academy – to prepare some lecture demonstrations of the velocity of light. That was in 1878 and it had led to Michelson’s first determination of the velocity of light in 1880. On 7th May 1931, i.e., fifty years later and two days before he died he dictated the opening sentences of a paper, posthumously published, which gave the results of his last measurement! Michelson’s efforts resulted in an improvement in our knowledge of the velocity of light from one part in 3,000 to 1 part in 30,000 – i.e., by a factor of 10. But by 1973, the accuracy had been improved to 1 part in 100000000000 -- a measurement that made obsolete, beforehand, all earlier measurements! Were Michelson’s efforts over fifty years in vain? Leaving that question aside, one must record that, during his long career, Michelson made great discoveries derived from his delight in “light waves and their uses”. Thus, his development of interferometry, leading to the first direct determination of the diameter of a star, is breathtaking. And who does not know the Michelson-Morley experiment, which -- through Einstein’s formulation of the special and the general theory of relativity -- changes irrevocably our formulation of the nature of space and time? It is a curious fact that Michelson himself was never happy with the outcome of his experiment!! Indeed, it is recorded that when Einstein visited Michelson in April 1931, Mrs. Michelson felt it necessary to warn Einstein in a whisper when he arrived: “Please don’t get him started on the subject of the ether”!
When Michelson was asked towards the end of his life, why he had devoted such a large fraction of the time to the measurement of the velocity of light, he is said to have replied “It was so much of fun”! There is no denying that “fun” does play a role in the pursuit of science. What are the other factors? Difficult to say! I leave it open to your own jurisdiction now.