How Is Science Even Possible?
The Joy of Why
Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine
4.9 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2024
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The universe seems like it should be unfathomably complex. How then is science able to crack fundamental questions about nature and life? Scientists and philosophers alike have often commented on the “unreasonable” success of mathematics at describing the universe. That success has helped science probe some profound mysteries — but as the physicist Nigel Goldenfeld points out, it also helps that the “hard” physical sciences, where this progress is most evident, are in major ways simpler than the “soft” biological sciences.
In this episode, Goldenfeld speaks with co-host Steven Strogatz about the scientific importance of asking the right questions at the right time. They also discuss the mysterious effects of “emergence,” the phenomenon that allows new properties to arise in systems at different scales, imposing unexpected order on cosmic complexity.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Albert Einstein once wrote, |
| 0:08.0 | The Eternal Mystery of the World is its Comprehensibility. |
| 0:12.0 | It really is awesome when you think about it. |
| 0:15.0 | The laws of nature, at least in physics, turn out to be amazingly simple, |
| 0:19.0 | so simple that we human beings can discover those |
| 0:21.9 | laws and understand them and use them to change the world. |
| 0:26.7 | But why is nature like this? |
| 0:28.8 | Why is it so comprehensible? |
| 0:30.8 | And why is math so uncannily effective at explaining it? |
| 0:34.6 | Not just in physics, but also in chemistry, in astronomy, and even in some parts |
| 0:39.0 | of biology. In short, why is science even possible? I'm Steve Strogett, and this is the joy of why, |
| 0:50.3 | a podcast from Quantum Magazine, where my co-host, Janelle Levin, and I take turns exploring |
| 0:55.5 | some of the biggest mysteries in math and science today. |
| 0:59.0 | In this episode, we'll be speaking with physicist Nigel Goldenfeld about the mystery of nature's |
| 1:04.9 | comprehensibility. |
| 1:07.0 | Nigel holds the Chancellor's distinguished professorship in physics at the University of California, San Diego, |
| 1:12.6 | where his research spans condensed matter theory, the theory of living systems, hydrodynamics, and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics. |
| 1:21.6 | Previously, he was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a founding member |
| 1:28.4 | of its Institute for Genomic Biology, where he led the Biocomplexity Group and directed |
| 1:34.6 | the NASA Astrobiology Institute for Universal Biology. |
| 1:39.2 | In addition to being a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Academy |
| 1:43.6 | of Arts and Sciences, and the U.S. |
... |
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