Human mind always seeks to know the
unknown. That’s called ‘curiosity’, and that’s probably the most important
characteristic of human which made not only made us different from all other
creatures on this planet but also has enabled us to achieve the present status
of science and technology. The immediate ‘profit’ or application or ‘curiosity’
may not be obvious, and so critics might argue about ‘waste’ of taxpayers’
money being pumped into sending a rover to Mars which isn’t going to solve the
pressing needs of the society like unemployment, poor economy, poverty, energy
problem, etc. But if you kill curiosity, you kill everything – you kill the
progress of human civilization, you kill the very quality which has made us
achieve all these. You simply make our society stagnate and saturate. Thus, if
we completely stop pumping money into the effort towards knowing the unknown
and instead divert all those money towards solving basic human problems like
poverty, illiteracy, etc., then 100 years from now, human society might have a better standard of living
overall in terms of reduced poverty and unemployment rate (assuming corruption
does not absorb all those money before reaching the grass-root level which is a
poor assumption!) but due to braking the research effort, it is highly possible
that the technological status of the society would be similar to what it is now
in 2012 and that would be such a mockery at our face that in 100 years, we
stayed where we were!
Research, in general, is incremental in
nature, for, every effort has a higher probability of failure than of success.
And by ‘research’, I mean attempt to explore new stuffs, to understand new
phenomena. If I do an experiment to find out something new or to make a new
kind of electronic device work, the probability of failure outweighs that of
success. All great inventors and scientists throughout history have testified
to it including Edison who claimed with respect to the electric bulb that ‘No, I
have not failed. I just found out 10,000 ways which don’t work’. So, the effort
of a lot of dedicated researchers sweating it out for a long time, go into
making one thing work. And then at certain special occasions, breakthroughs do
happen based on the results and understanding gathered over so many years by so
many researchers. And we celebrate the success. Or, put it more clearly, we
celebrate the spirit of the human mind.
Curiosity is moving slowly on the surface of
Mars as I’m writing this blog. This Curiosity
of course, is the NASA-launched robotic space-craft which made headlines a few
weeks ago as a triumph of the human mind while we were simultaneously
celebrating the human spirit in London in the form of the greatest bloodless
war on the planet. $2.5 billion USD is the price incurred to land that rover on
the red planet, and although that $2.5 billion USD could have been spent in
reducing unemployment rates in the USA or in pulling up the economy further,
yet, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that this Curiosity might provide us with something in the near future which
could have impacts on our civilization in ways we could never imagine! May be
the findings of Curiosity would trigger
something which lead to discoveries and inventions that radically change the
landscape of human civilization! $2.5 billion USD would then pale in comparison
to it! But we don’t know, and we are not sure until the time comes. If – again
– if, Curiosity does stumble upon
something that manages to affect the course of human civilization, then we
would obviously cheer for the people in NASA who made it possible, but we
should also thank the countless mathematicians, physicists and chemists of the
middle ages to 19th century whose contributions made it all possible
apart from the 20th century revolutions in electronics and
computers.
In India, most of the common people - as
far as my understanding goes & I may be wrong though – consider it a
complete mockery of public money that India should plan to send an unmanned
mission to Mars next year. In fact, the relatively small amount of money (approximately
$80 million USD compared to $2.5 billion USD spent for Curiosity) announced by the PM for the Mars mission has been
considered a total waste by many critics especially at a time when that money
can be diverted towards solving crucial problems of the country at the
grass-root level. Common minds cannot fathom the depths of the necessity of
such a mission. In fact, history bears testimony that common minds can not
foresee the future beyond what is required for surviving today. Imagine a world
with no electric generators to convert magnetism into electricity at all the
thermal power plants or hydro-electric plans. We would have no electricity – no
laptops, no cell phones, no internet, no computers, no light bulbs at night, no
fans & ACs. Modern life is literally impossible without electricity. Yet,
when Faraday first demonstrated the generator converting magnetism into
electricity, a lady asked him, “Mr. Faraday, would this generator have any
useful application?’ to which Faraday replied, “Madam, one day, you may be
taxed for its product.” True. We do pay electricity bills.
Curiosity created the generator. Common
minds questioned its use/applicability. Time proved what needed to be proved.
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