Almost weekly, we’re glimpsing deeper into our universe through increasingly fine-tuned telescopes and lenses.
Astronomers recently released the most detailed images of the distant Orion Nebula—1,300 light years away. Earlier in summer, they discovered 21 “white dwarf” candidate stars and the most distant galaxy ever observed.
The amount we have to learn is endless—as vast as the universe, or multiple universes, in which we and our planet spin. It’s exciting and sometimes discomfiting to realize how much we don’t yet know.
Surprisingly, when the lens is flipped to observe the underpinnings of life rather than the galaxy’s outer limits, there’s even less certainty.
In When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Labatut describes how the arrival of quantum mechanics upended the linear path that, up to that point, had exponentially increased our scientific success in reducing the world to smaller and smaller known pieces.
At a conference in 1927 of the world’s greatest scientists, Labatut explains, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr presented their startling vision of quantum mechanics. It describes how “an electron is not in any fixed place until it is measured; it is only in that instant that it appears. Before being measured, it has no attributes; prior to observation, it cannot even be conceived of.” Through this discovery, scientific thinkers came face to face with the limits of our capacity to fully understand life’s building blocks in concrete terms.
Heisenberg also introduced the “uncertainty principle”, which states that the position and momentum of a particle can’t both be measured with precision. The more accurately you know one value, the less accurately you know the other.
Quantum mechanics changed the trajectory of science. As Wikipedia explains, “Quantum mechanics describes nature in a way that is different from how we usually think about science. It tells us how likely to happen some things are, rather than telling us that they certainly will happen.” Although its arrival changed the reductionist nature of some scientific paths, its inherent uncertainty didn’t make it less valuable. Quantum mechanics is foundational to chemistry and cosmology.
Astrophysicist Adam Frank and colleagues say the scientific shift changed the historical observer status assigned to the scientist. He writes that we can no longer expect to know the world “in itself, outside our ways of seeing and acting on things. Experience is just as fundamental to scientific knowledge as the physical reality it reveals.”
Labatut writes, “Physics ought not to concern itself with reality, but rather with what we can say about reality.” What we say about reality is, in other words, our stories, borne from our relationships with the world(s) around us.
As Heisenberg explains, “When we speak of the science of our era, we are talking about our relationship with nature, not as objective, detached observers, but as actors in a game between man and the world.”
Although we find ourselves between two poles of uncertainty—the infinitesimally small and the infinitely grand—our (even nominal) understanding of quantum mechanics can help us gain perspective.
To start, we can embrace, with humility, the realization that we’re far from fully understanding, and will likely never fully understand, the mechanisms that determine nature and reality. Science is not absolute, but we can learn to thrive within this lack of certainty. It can help us to approach the world with more curiosity and wonder.
As writer Marilynne Robinson says, we should look to “sciences whose terms and methods can overturn the assumptions of the inquirers” rather than that which “simply insists on the truth value of its assumptions”.
And we can act in accordance with what we do know, such as our ever-expanding appreciation of the profound interactions that make life possible—from the elaborate mycelial networks underground to the global carbon cycle, from quantum to cosmic. We continually observe our world and describe it back to each other, revising understandings over time.
Our experiences will always be a part of our “reality”. The two cannot be teased apart. And we always face uncertainty. But in the absence of certainty there lies probability, between countless series of possible outcomes. Collectively, we can change the world by striving for the best of what is possible, through our relationships with nature and each other.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
