The following is not a hypothetical question. It is real!
Let's imagine a huge spaceship has been built - I will tell you where a similar spaceship can be found in a moment. It can carry 500 passengers to anywhere in the universe at extremely high speed. You are lucky to be chosen as one of the passengers in this advanced spaceship. Each passenger can choose whatever they want to do on this ship while it travels through space. What would you do?
Would you want to be the one who takes care and navigates this highly engineered spaceship? Or are you the type who likes to take care of the health of the passengers and become the Medical person on board.
A novel effort indeed! May be you want to be the captain of this ship and manage the entire journey taking care of the ship as well as the passengers. Maybe, some of you may want to start a business on board making a fortune at the end of the journey.
Well, do you know what I'll do? I'll talk to the captain of the ship and tell him that I want to do nothing except to just sit by my window looking through my telescopes and binoculars and enjoy all the strange and mysterious things that passes by as we zip through space. How about that? Would you like to join me and appreciate all the new things that come by? I asked the same question to my Quantum Physics class of about 100 students recently and sensed a resounding "yes" from the floor which would otherwise be silent every time I posed a question.
Now let's just imagine the spaceship is slightly bigger. Much bigger. Let's say it can carry many more passengers. Not 500 or 5000 but 5 billion passengers. And I ask you the same question. What would you prefer to do on such a spaceship? Would you still join me by the window and study all the great things that pass by.
A 5 billion passenger spaceship is huge. But then the earth has 5 billion on it and… yes we're actually on a spaceship that we call Earth. This spaceship of ours in this solar system travels through the ever expanding universe which according to the Big Bang moves further and further away from its neighbours - like two points on the surface of an expanding balloon.
Probably the early species of Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus and of course the surviving Homo Sapiens (that's us) after dinner would sit by their "dwellings" and look up in the sky and wonder what is out there and why they are here on this spaceship, Earth.
So what is my point?
We still ask the same questions today. As passengers on this mighty spaceship, our kids asked a lot of questions at their early age but asked less and less as they grow older. They lack the passion to pursue and understand nature, I mean basic science - mathematics, physics and astronomy, chemistry, biology etc. Of course the other subjects are equally important for the well being of our spaceship.
The present day Homo Sapiens may be involved in so many "complex affairs" and forget to ask basic questions about nature. Much of our present day technologies are the results of many generations of finding questions as well as providing answers about nature - things that pass by the window of our great spaceship - that was quickly captured by the great minds like Newton and Einstein. As the human race inches through to understand nature, for example nanotechnology, nanobiology, molecular electronics plus atoms, protons, quarks -charm, strange, beauty and down, gluons, mesons, leptons etc etc, more passengers sitting by the window will ensure the continuous charting of the wonderful things that pass by our great spaceship, screaming to be discovered.
So to all you kids and over grown kids out there … let us join the great geniuses and minds of our past, present and future and sit by the window in this mysterious journey in our great spaceship.
