By Saahil Manna L. Nongrum
Science is produced not in the laboratory but in the mind. The thrill of science stems not only from what is observed but also on discovering how seemingly diverse observations are interrelated.
Imagine a scene where in the pastoral quiet of countryside is rocked by a shower of acrid smoke and molten rocks,” a something” that destroys every bulwark erected in its course. An explosion of molten matter and hot gases that arise scores of miles away from the very ground on which we stand is the birth of a volcano-a volcano that will now be studied for ages to come. But does not this same stuff that causes agony also create a serene environ where the mind, the body and the soul become one, when from this acrid ground months later on acres and acres on the same land beautiful wild flowers dance in the gentle breeze after a spring thaw?
When a firefly wings about in a garden on a moonless night, it’s light moving intriguingly in the darkness. A light so dim that even thousands of them together will shy away from a lightning flash. What makes a firefly glow? Energy. Energy like matter isn’t tangible. It can’t be felt, heard, seen or tasted .What is breathtaking is that it still exists as something that is universally vital. It cannot be created nor destroyed, only transferred from one state to the other.
Try viewing a sunspot through a telescope. It will appear like a tiny dot running about on the sun’s surface. Compare that to an amoeba viewed through a microscope. Both will look the same in size. However a sunspot is actually larger than the earth but an amoeba no larger than the point of a pin.
It’s when we let our thoughts run wild and bridge the finite and the infinite, probe for answers in our minds which is as boundless as space and time, discover an answer we always knew; that’s when we realise that science is such a marvellous thing.
(An alumni of St Edmunds School, Shillong: Contact – smlnongrum @gmail.com)