The Power and Possibility of Play: Why Science Is More Than Just Facts and Equations

For many people, their exposure to science is limited to classes in high school and maybe a couple huge introductory science courses if they went to college. Students often leave these experiences with the impression that science is all about memorizing facts, knowing how to solve equations, and doing “experiments” that literally millions of other people have done before and to which there is a “right” answer.

The essential nature of science is completely lost in experiences like this, which—to be clear—have virtually nothing in common with doing actual science. At its core, science is about playing with stuff to uncover new things about the universe (which, by the way, includes our planet and everything on it) that are brand-new to you—and maybe brand-new to anyone.

By analogy—think about spelling and grammar. There are people who enjoy learning how to spell and use correct grammar. I hypothesize that people who love learning how to spell are somewhat rare, and most people just put up with learning these things because they are told they have to. Still, many students learn the fundamentals of spelling and grammar before high school and then go on to do actually interesting things (from my perspective), like reading great novels or writing poetry (and I think tend to forget how annoying it was to learn the building blocks to begin with). But you would be hard-pressed to read a great novel or write a poem without the fundamental skills of spelling and grammar in your tool kit.

When it comes to science, memorizing facts, knowing how to solve equations, and doing so-called “experiments” that are in no danger of uncovering anything new are the equivalent of learning spelling and grammar. When it comes to science, many people (through no fault of their own) never get to the point where they can do the science equivalent of reading a great novel or writing a poem. An enormous challenge in the education system is to find ways to expose students to the joy (yes, actual bona fide joy) that can accompany doing real science—by which I mean an experiment you have designed to answer a question you actually want to know the answer to, and to which no one might actually know the answer. Sometimes scientists just do this for fun.

Many people also have sentiments about science and scientists that lean deeply into stereotypes—after all, how many professional scientists does a typical person know and interact with regularly? For example, there is an irony in people thinking so uncreatively about creativity to think that science doesn’t require it. If you want to solve big outstanding mysteries (or even small ones), you must be able to come up with new ideas, some of which will seem crazy. Following the rules in science is basically the equivalent of learning the rules for spelling and grammar. Do you need to follow rules when writing a novel? Well, sort of.

There are elements of writing that are best practice, and if you don’t use them, your work may be unintelligible to the outside world (thank goodness I have an editor). But if all you did was follow formulaic rules, your novel would probably not be a big hit. The same is true for science; there are elements of doing science that are important to making sure your results are robust and usable to the broader community. But if you want to make a breakthrough, creativity is essential.

There is also a pervasive opinion that there is little room for interpretation in science. Friedrich Nietzsche is often quoted as saying, “All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth” (although I note with some irony that this is not actually what he said). In science, we collect data, and then try to assess what theory best fits those data. That sounds straightforward enough, but deciding which theory fits best depends on what elements you think are most important to fit, whether you agree with assumptions that have been made, and whether you believe the data are sufficiently representative, and so on. Then the question you must ask (as a scientist) is “How can I test whether my interpretation is correct?” If you can’t test it, you may want to dial back your confidence that you’re right.

That is, we also need to be skeptical. The word “skeptical” has been hijacked by colloquial language. For scientists, “skeptical” does not mean that you don’t believe anything. “Skeptical” does mean that you look at the strengths and weaknesses of any given claim and prefer to have evidence. In the latter sense of the word “skeptical,” scientists are (or should be) skeptical. In my opinion, so should everyone else. If you believe everything anyone tells you with no need for evidence, then I’d like to sell you some stars in the night sky (which, just FYI, is a total scam—sorry). Do you believe every news source you read without question? How about politicians? Also, to be clear, it isn’t actually possible to believe everything you are told because inevitably you will be told things that conflict. How do you know which to believe? Skepticism to the rescue.

Finally, I am all about using science as a tool to help us understand the universe, but if you want to use a tool most effectively, it is helpful to also understand its limitations. To be sure, there are occasions in which I have used the handle of a screwdriver as a hammer, or a table knife as a screwdriver, but the result would have been better if I’d had a more suitable tool at hand. As far as science goes, it is really good at testing things that are testable, but outside of the realm of the testable, science has no purchase. And this is the very realm where many of the most profound questions about the cosmos dwell.

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We can do, and have done, an impressive amount with our brains and logic. But there are limits. Sometimes these limits go away if we keep at it for long enough—we just need better facilities and experiments to get the answer. Often, we are pretty confident that if we could actually perform such-and-such experiment, we could resolve this-or-that mystery. Breaking new ground in modern science in this way often (but not always) comes with a big associated price tag. Next-generation supercolliders or overwhelmingly large telescopes are not cheap, but these may be required to come up with answers to some of the unsolved mysteries of the cosmos.

Sometimes our limits reflect the (relatively) extremely short time we’ve been doing modern science. After all, the Scientific Revolution was less than four hundred years ago, which is only 0.00000003 × the age of the universe or 0.0000001 × the age of Earth. Heck, we’ve only had the two pillars of modern science, general relativity and quantum mechanics, for about a century. Not only does that mean we haven’t had a lot of time to figure things out, but the universe isn’t set up to do a dog and pony show whenever we need data on something. The universe will take its own sweet time. Need to study a supernova in detail for your PhD thesis? Well, sit tight, odds are we will have one in our galaxy sometime in the next fifty years or so.

Sometimes the limits we encounter in trying to unlock the nature of the cosmos are cognitive. As in our own brains. Think about this: human DNA is only about 1.2 percent different from that of chimps. Chimps are smart, no question. But could you teach one calculus (not to mention general relativity and quantum mechanics)? What if our DNA were another 1.2 percent further evolved than it is? What might our brains be capable of then? The level of abstract thinking (and other types of thinking we don’t even have words for) might be astounding. To be clear, I am not advocating for transhumanism. Rather, I want to flag the pure unbridled hubris involved in thinking that our brains are even capable of totally understanding the cosmos in its entirety. But that sure as heck isn’t going to stop us from trying to understand what we can.

Sometimes the limits we hit are fundamental (or appear to be). There are laws of nature that we may never be able to understand, no matter how advanced our brains might become. Which means there are experiments we might never be able to perform (though I use the word “never” lightly and the word “might” with optimism). We may never be able to test what actually happens inside a black hole. We may never be able to probe (let alone interact with) other dimensions (if they exist). We may never be able to break the infinite regression of what caused the universe to be created, and what caused the cause of the universe being created, and what caused the cause of the cause of the universe being created. Turtles all the way down (we will come to the famous story of the infinite stack of turtles shortly). This is where we run smack into the boundaries of science.

For something to be considered scientific, it must, by definition, be testable. There is a tiny little loophole here: it may not need to be testable right now, but it must, at least in principle, be testable at some point in the future by some experiment that could realistically happen. If an idea or hypothesis isn’t testable, that doesn’t mean that it is wrong. It means it isn’t testable. If it isn’t testable, how do we know if it is correct? These (potentially) untestable ideas also happen to be (in my opinion) some of the most interesting ones, probably because they’ve been vexing humanity for millennia.

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Excerpted from Into the Unknown: The Quest to Understand the Mysteries of the Cosmos by Kelsey Johnson. Copyright © 2024. Available from Basic Books, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc.