Scientific Progress Goes Boink

A couple of months ago, the scientific community, the community of people that get excited about everything, and the larger community in general, were falling over themselves in excitement at the discovery of gravitational waves. It was hailed as the next big scientific discovery, the biggest thing to have happened to science since quantum mechanics. Of course, with the advent of social media, everything seems like the biggest thing since sliced bread, the iPhone & the season finale of Game of Thrones put together, so it’s sometimes hard to distinguish between real news and something trivial that just happens to be trending on social media. Still, it all seemed like a terribly big deal and made me curious enough to know what gravitational waves were, and how it would make a difference to my life. While every news article seemed supremely thrilled about gravitational waves and kept stressing that it was a huge, game-changing discovery, most descriptions of gravitational waves made absolutely no sense to me, no matter how hard I tried to pay attention. Then I came across one site that claimed to explain it in layman’s terms, promising that it was so simple that even a 5 year old, or a person with the IQ of Donald Trump, would understand it. It promptly proceeded to use big words like space-time continuum (I know 5-year-olds these days are a lot smarter than I was as 5, but which 5 year old will understand space time continuum?) that perplexed me even further. Don’t get me wrong though, I’m not complaining that I couldn’t understand what gravitational waves were – in fact it was quite the opposite. I was satisfied that here, at last, was some legitimate science.

I’ve always had a strange equation with science – from afar, it’s been fascinating, but when science gets really serious, I don’t understand a thing. When science is watered down and made into popular science with books like The Brief History of Nearly Everything, I’m utterly fascinated and captivated by it. Sometimes I even think that if this is how science was taught in school, I’d perhaps not have been so hopeless at it. But deep in my heart, I know that this is rubbish. Sure, one may enjoy Bill Bryson’s fascinating stories about science or Carl Sagan talking about the Pale Blue Dot or Morgan Freeman narrating about the Cosmos (somehow, since the Shawshank Redemption, Morgan Freeman has emerged as a universal narrator for all manner of movies and shows, so much so that most people will listen in awestruck fascination even if Morgan Freeman narrated about watching paint dry). But serious science still involves solving complex equations on projectile motion or mastering calculus and all manner of complex formulae – something I never got the hang of when I was 16, and that’s certainly not going to change now.

So my thrill when I couldn’t understand gravitational waves was derived from the satisfaction that it was actual science, as opposed to what you mostly come across as science in the papers these days, with headlines like “Teenage Boys Most Likely To Watch Porn”. Most of these scientific studies feel like science that’s not just watered down, but also positively dumbed down to remove any shred of intelligence. They’ll often be backed by august universities or institutions, but that doesn’t make them any less daft. That’s why most of what passes off as science in the newspapers looks like this:

“Staying Alone Can Make You Lonely”

Scientists at the Institute for Blindingly Obvious Research Studies have discovered that staying on your own can sometimes make you feel lonely, thereby inducing pangs of longing and enhancing the need for company. In a study conducted across 2000 people, it was concluded that people staying alone were 26% more likely to feel lonely every once in while than people who were staying with flat mates or a spouse.

“Eating Cheese Could Lead to Longer Life”

Scientists at the Institute that Does a New Food Research Everyday to Confuse You on What’s Good and What’s Bad have discovered that eating cheese could lead to a longer lifespan. In a completely bonkers study conducted over five decades across two groups – one that ate cheese regularly and one that rarely ate cheese – it was found that the cheese-eating group lived, on average, five years longer. While the cheese lobby was elated at the findings, scientists cautioned that the longer lifespan could also be because the cheese eating group led a healthier life overall with a daily routine of cycling, circuit training, long-distance running, weight training and yoga, combined with living in the countryside.  However, it could just as well be cheese, so to be safe it’s best to eat cheese anyway, said the Chief Scientist.

“Men More Likely to Stare at Busty Women”

Scientists at the Institute that Specialises in Creepy & Pointless Research have concluded that men are twice as likely to ogle at women with bigger breasts than women with regular breasts. In a controversial study that reeks of sexism and had feminists fuming and men queuing up in eager anticipation, 500 men were asked to sit down and ogle at a bunch of women passing by. Surprise, surprise - it was discovered that the men were twice more likely to ogle at women with larger breasts.

I'm sure there is real science going on all the time - maybe it just doesn't make it to the news. The last time real science was in the news was when the God particle was discovered, although, much like God Himself, it disappeared after a week of frenzied activity. Whatever happened of the Large Hadron Collider once the God particle was found? It’s probably lying unused, gathering cobwebs and dust, to the extent that something can gather dust when it’s located along the pristine alpine-ness of the Franco-Swiss border. My guess is they're trying to flog it off to some Elon Musk/Bruce Wayne type playboy tech millionaire:

LHC Salesman: Good evening, sir. We’re calling from CERN, and we were wondering if you’d be interested in purchasing the Large Hadron Collider?

Playboy Tech Millionaire: A large hadron collider? What on earth for?

LHC Salesman: It’s great for splitting atoms at very high speeds. In fact, it’s the best particle accelerator ever built – far better than your run-of-the-mill, everyday cyclotron.

Millionaire: But I’m not really in the habit of splitting atoms in my spare time. 

LHC: You should, then! There's nothing quite like the thrill of a high speed collision between subatomic particles. It’s also a chance to own a piece of scientific history. Plus it’s a 14 km long tunnel – you could use it as an escape route, for rave parties, or your kids could use it to play hide and seek, or…

(Line disconnected)

The National Board For Blog Control Would Sue This!

A few days back, I stumbled upon this interesting headline in the papers “SC: Scrabble is a game, not a puzzle”. Baffled and bemused in equal parts, I went on to read further and discovered that the Supreme Court judges had spent a good deal of time studying the history and development of Scrabble (and presumably also played a good deal of games) before concluding that Scrabble could not be classified as a puzzle and instead was a game. They went on to list differences between Scrabble and Crossword puzzles to prove beyond doubt that Scrabble was indeed a game. Now you might wonder “It’s been 25 years since the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and the perpetrators have still not been brought to justice, so what on Earth is the Supreme Court doing wasting precious time on the taxonomy of Scrabble?” But there you have it – being a Supreme Court judge does not simply involve wearing a funny wig and presiding over judgments that change the course of a nation – you also get to play a lot of Scrabble.

And then it dawned on me – there are a lot of people with important-sounding titles all over the place, who really don’t do anything much. Take, for example, the National Egg Coordination Committee. Now, I’m not saying they don’t do anything at all, and they must be quite busy putting out all those “Roz Khao Ande” ads; but I’m pretty sure the NECC employees don’t come home dead tired at 10 in the night saying “Honey, don’t disturb me today – I’ve been working really hard coordinating eggs all day.”

And I bet you didn’t know that the Indian Government has a Ministry for Non-Resident Indians as well as a Ministry for Overseas Indians! I suppose both the ministries are perpetually at loggerheads over what falls under their purview, which is probably the only way to keep them occupied. The second of these ministries was probably created just to stop some politician from defecting to a rival party, is what I would guess. Here are some of the more obscure government departments that you probably didn’t know your tax-money was supporting:

• National Centre for Jute Diversification
• Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan
• National Balbhavan
• National Centre for Promotion of Urdu Language
• National Remote Sensing Agency
• National Mission for Manuscripts
• National Frequency Allocation Planning Board

And this is not just limited to the government. Take scientific research, for example – sounds like a perfectly serious and responsible profession, doesn’t it? Yet every second day, solemn scientists with top degrees and impeccable credentials make the news for research that would not exactly make you go “Oh my god! Is that really so?” If you ever turn to that section of the newspapers that talk about the latest developments/findings on the health/lifestyle front, these are the kind of reports you’re likely to see:

Men Likely to Stare at Women in Skimpy Clothes

Researchers at the Department of Anthropology, University of Bath, England, have concluded that there is a 94.6% higher chance that men would stare at a woman dressed in skimpy attire as opposed to a woman wearing a brown paper bag over her head. This was the result of a research conducted across 12000 men all over the world over a five-year period. According to eminent anthropologist Dr Ludwig Van Ecclestone, who headed the research, “Men tend to suffer from what we in the research circles refer to as the ambulatory optic syndrome, something that lay men would call a roving eye. The minute a scantily-clad woman walks in to a room, most men’s eyes would immediately dart in her direction to catch a quick glimpse. This explains a lot and we hope this study contributes to a greater understanding of the cross-gender interaction in a socio-environmental context.”

Humans Need Privacy

In a groundbreaking research that was conducted across 25 different species that included humans, insects, birds, mammals, reptiles and Paris Hilton, it was discovered that humans needed privacy more than all other species, except bears during hibernation. “The human need for privacy is indeed a very strong one, which is why there are so many houses that have been built all over the world. Not just houses, our research has helped explain other phenomena of human civilization such as curtains, doors, and why Russell Crowe is regularly in the news for beating up a pesky paparazzi photographer”, says Dr Ricard Ecschnede, Director, Psychiatry Studies Wing, University of San Diego.

Three Bottles of Beer a Day is Good for Health

Well, its official – beer is good for your health. At least until the next such study is conducted. Researchers at the Oktoberfest University of Health Studies in Munich have concluded that having three bottles of beer after work every day generally keeps your bodily functions as well as mental faculties going and can lead to a longer life expectancy. This contradicts the earlier study that stated that consumption of beer was injurious to health, which itself was a direct contradiction of the previous study that said that beer had a lot of beneficial effects on the human health.

And I’m not kidding about any of all this – you might think that I made up all the stuff mentioned above, which may be partly true when it comes to the finer details, but the essence of it is pretty much the same. If you don’t believe me, I quote below the headlines from yesterday’s newspaper on the kind of research that’s been happening:

“US docs relocate fat to create bigger breasts”

“Tomato and potato plants are carnivores”

“All men watch harmless porn”

So remember – the next time you meet some official-looking person who hands you his business card and it says “Vice President, Documentation”, he could very well turn out to be the office photocopying boy! (as one of my professors at GIM had put it)