Literary musings on a News Item from a Lab: New, superheavy element to enter periodic table

When Thomas Gray wrote in his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;

Along the cool sequester’d vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

he was certainly not thinking of scientists working in sequestered laboratories, away from the frenzy of the terrors and threats, the cruelties and crises that characterize the world of politics and religions, and much of the news about war-mongering and missile launching. But there are, thank heavens, people whose interests and attention are drawn to music and poetry, to telescopes and microscopes and accelerators. Now and again we read about their accomplishments, not all of which may be accessible to the average citizen of the world.

One of those breakthroughs recently announced is the concoction of yet another super-heavy element in a laboratory: one with the atomic number 112. That confirms the list of human-generated elements to almost twenty beyond what nature can bear: Uranium-92.

As elements grow heavier they become unstable, losing weight, as it were, by spitting out (radioactively) intolerable excesses as alpha and beta particles. So every trans-Uranic element vanishes in due course, reducing itself to a lighter element in the natural world. Now some physicists have reported (from the Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Arheiligen in Germany) that by interbreeding (metaphorically speaking) zinc and lead nuclei they have managed to create this new overweight element with a respectable period of stability: this Pantagruel will soon acquire a technical-sounding name. Except that Rabelais’ Pantagruel was the progeny of the giant Gargantua, whereas here the parents zinc and lead are perfectly normal: only the progeny is gigantesque. A more apt literary reference would be Aldous Huxley’s Crome Yellow where  Sir Hercules and Filomena (two dwarfs) gave birth to Ferdinando, a giant by comparison, for that’s how this super-hveavy element was concocted.

Modifying Rabelais one might say:

Readers, friends, if this news you read,

You’ll find daily news hollow indeed.

There’s nothing here that’s outrageous,

Nothing sick, or bad or contagious

Physicists are ecstatic about this event

Creating another super-heavy element.

We wish our media, instead of making unhappy noises

Reports on matters about which one rejoices.

V. V. Raman

June 11, 2009

News Item: Creationism Comment Violated Constitution

“A teenager in California has win his lawsuit  against a public school teacher who called creationism “superstitious nonsense” during a classroom lecture. Chad Farnan sued Capistrano Valley High School history teacher James Corbett for that and other anti-religion comments  he said made Christians in the class feel uncomfortable, disparaged their beliefs, and violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment”

The age of debates and discussions has degenerated into one of conflicts and confrontations. There was a time when deeply religious people used to think that atheists and non-religionists are evil. Now the non-religionists imagine the religiously inclined to be mentally challenged. There was a time when non-religious and anti-religious people used to be closet dissenters. Now they have become bolder and bolder: one can write books calling religion a delusion and god as not great, and not only get away with it, but make tons of money in a book deal. All this is fair and good in a free society. But given that one can’t insult certain religions and its scriptures explicitly in public without provoking international repercussions and risking one’s own personal safety, Christians are also becoming more sensitive to continued abuse by local atheists.

The way I see it, there is no need to make believers feel small and stupid in a class-room even if one wishes to say that scientific perspectives on creation differ considerably in methodology and conclusion from the religious. After all, matters of origins are very complex, and no one can be a hundred percent sure of how or why it all began. Respect for scientifically gained knowledge and insight need not necessarily belittle other fundamental beliefs that are meaningful to millions.

More important than scientific theories and religious dogmas is respect for the other, in so far as no hurt or hate is involved. This is what will bring peace to the world, not  whether one accepts the Big Bang theory or the Book of Genesis as the true account of how the world came to be. Of course in a science course one should talk about the Big Bang and not about the seven-day creation. Religious beliefs are not matters for discussion or debate in a class-room devoted to a science course, but as the same time  insensitive and disparaging remarks about the religious sentiments and convictions of students are unworthy of a teacher whose responsibility is to teach the subject and to inculcate values that should include respect for others.

The teacher in this case may have been right in saying that religious views of biogenesis don’t quite resonate with what science seems to have established without a reasonable doubt, but he may have crossed the line if and when in the process he made one or more students in the class feel like duds along with their parents and preachers.

There is little hope for peace and harmony in the country or in the world as long as true-believing warriors on both sides of any issue are out to desecrate and destroy the framework of their opponents with little understanding or empathy for the other.

V. V. Raman

May 8, 2009