Weird Science

One of my favorite movies growing up was the 1985 movie, Weird Science.  The movie was written and directed by the legendary John Hughes (his works included, among many others, such 1980's hits as "The Breakfast Club", "Sixteen Candles", and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off") and featured an all-star cast, including Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock, Bill Paxton, and Robert Downey, Jr.  Basically, the movie is a play on the 1935 classic, Bride of Frankenstein in which the two main characters, Wyatt and Gary hack into a Department of Defense computer system to create the perfect female companion (at least in their view).  The "virtual girl" comes to life, teaches Wyatt and Gary important life lessons, and everyone lives happily ever after with the "virtual girl" going back into the "virtual world" at the end of the movie. 

I was thinking of this movie when I came across some recent scientific articles that were mentioned in the news recently.  Given all of the recent attention on "fake news", in each case I went to the original source and pulled the article to read.  All three manuscripts aren't necessarily what I would call "beach reading", but I have to confess that I did look at the articles while I was sitting on the beach (vacation time is one of the best times to read things that have absolutely nothing to do with work).  The first article, from the journal Science, presented the findings of a study that purportedly proves that honeybees understand the concept of zero.  I am not sure why that matters, but okay, it's pretty cool.  Zero, or the concept of "nothing" after all is an important concept. 

The next article was one that mentioned that the business wunderkind, inventor, and dreamer, Elon Musk recently claimed that it was highly likely ("the odds are overwhelming" in fact) that we are characters living in someone else's computer simulation (kind of like in another movie, The Matrix).  Okay, this one was a little weird, but the original paper by the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom is fairly interesting, if complicated to understand.  Basically, Bostrom suggests (and Elon Musk whole-heartedly agrees) that at least one of the following statements is true - (1) the human species will become extinct before we progress to a post-human state (think artificial intelligence, virtual reality, robotics, and cyborgs!); (2) any post-human civilization is unlikely to actually run a computer simulation of real-world life and humans (basically because they either don't possess the ability or they are too ethical to do so); or (3) we are already living in a simulated world.  His argument requires a knowledge of formal logic, mathematics, and concepts like the Bland Indifference Principle and Bertrand's Paradox, which will require a little Internet reading if you aren't familiar with them).  It's kind of kookie, but it is interesting to think about (and not that much stranger than discussions about extraterrestrial life).

The last article was a little too much for me - apparently two scientists at MIT figured out the right way to break a strand of raw spaghetti into exactly two pieces (go ahead and try it, it's next to impossible).  Their study was published in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and requires a knowledge of mathematics that is probably beyond most non-mathematicians.  But, I will confess, it does make for some interesting reading too.

I know what you are thinking - and you are probably right.  I probably have lost it - but in all of this hard-core science is something important.  I have talked many times how we should try to broaden our horizons beyond our field of expertise.  I think these three research papers are great examples of this.  Do I really need to know that (1) bees "get" zero, (2) we are likely to be living in the Matrix, and (3) spaghetti can be broken into two equal pieces?  Probably not.  I don't imagine I will ever have an opportunity to use this new knowledge or even reference the three papers in any future article I may write.  But here's my point.  Every time that we go outside our comfort zone and learn something new, it doesn't matter whether we will use that knowledge in the future or not.  We are training our brains, keeping our minds sharp - whatever you want to call it.  And with sharp minds and well-trained brains, we may be able to tackle the next problem that comes our way and find unique and perfect solutions. 

Train your minds.  Expand your boundaries.  Get outside of your comfort zone.  Learn something new for just the simple pleasure of learning.  I promise that you will be better for it.