How does this work? Mind the Science Gap.

Everyone has a cell phone these days. Without a phone most people won’t be able to show off their latest stuff on Facebook or spread rumors on WhatsApp. But how many know what a “cell” is? Let alone know how it all works. My intention here is not to denigrate but to bring up a concept that I have been thinking about lately. 

This concept, for lack of a short phrase, can be called the “distance or gap between a scientific idea and its use.” I am going to shorten this to “Science Distance“ or “Science Gap.” This distance or gap can be any metric such as time, geography or most importantly knowledge. The cell phone knowledge distance is very large indeed. Folks who are using a cell phone have already enough trouble with the apps and software part of it which is all that is visible to a user. The electromagnetic theory behind the transmission of the signal between the phone and the receiver in a cell tower or the semiconductor physics and engineering behind the design of the processor chip or the phone display are all well beyond the comprehension ability of most phone users.

Let us look at how science distance has grown through the years. Not long ago people were using bullock carts or hand rickshaw for transportation. There is quite a bit of complicated science in a hand rickshaw, most of it being human biological concepts such as respiration, muscle activation, hormones and ATP. But you don’t have to know any of this to design a good hand rickshaw and hire a strong and fast human to operate it. The same goes for the bullock cart. The science distance in practical terms is very short. The local village blacksmith and the carpenter didn’t have to know any science to be able to design a rickshaw and for others to operate the design.

Move forward to the Industrial Revolution. The science distance suddenly jumped with the invention of the steam engine by Thomas Newcomen (no, James Watt only improved the design). This led to a deeper study of thermodynamics bringing such concepts as the Carnot Cycle to optimize the performance of the steam engine. Similar thing happened with the invention of the airplane by the Wright brothers. The field of aerodynamics was given birth and made life miserable for engineering students with such things as Navier-Stokes equations and Reynolds number.

But even during that period the science gap was manageable and was not very significant in practical terms. Neither James Watt or any of the Wright brothers were scientists. They were good tinkerers who developed their inventions by trial and error. In both cases of the steam engine and the airplane, the science came after the invention.

Fast forward to today. The invention of the transistor and the explosion of electronics dramatically increased this science distance. The discovery of cell structures and DNA has further increased this knowledge gap. Now this science distance is going to take another leap with Quantum Physics coming to a store near you. 

This increasing science gap is making it hard for policy makers to do their job. It is also encouraging an anti-science attitude among the people. People have become wary of trusting the science that they don’t understand. The current situation is somewhat similar to the Luddite movement of the 19th century which started with English workers breaking and destroying machines that they perceived as the devil which was taking their jobs away. Lack of basic science knowledge today is what drives such conspiracies as vaccine skepticism, climate change denialism, cancer causing 5G, Bill Gates putting microchips in your body and so on. On the other side of it, some cultures and societies that accept the science are reaching way back into their mythological past for scientific clues and explanations to bridge this science gap. This is good as long as it brings science to the people and encourages more young people to study science.

So what are the solutions to bridging the science distance? I don’t know. Only thing I know is that there is no substitute for hitting the books. So I am reading up on Quantum Physics to try and understand what it is all about.