An unexpected educational divide

Science seems to be getting really popular these days. And the weirder the better. Numerous books and TV programmes feed our fascination for the many bizarre and counter-intuitive theories concerning the laws that govern the universe, from multiple realities to particles that can be in two places at once.

Just a couple of days ago, I saw a truly breathtaking Horizon programme on the nature of reality, which ended on something called the holographic principle. And this is when it struck me that humans really don’t seem to be well equipped to deal with these questions. It appears that the closer we come to a genuine description of the way the universe really works, the further we find ourselves from something we can actually understand.

That’s not altogether surprising. There’s no evolutionary advantage in gaining such an understanding, and it’s perhaps more surprising that evolution has taken us to the point at which we can even scratch the surface of what makes the world tick. Most life on earth gets by perfectly well without that level of insight.

What may be distressing for some people – especially lay people – when it comes to these questions is that what appear to be the ‘best’ scientific theories simply can’t be expressed in natural language. The ideas are just beyond our comprehension – beyond our everyday experience and therefore impossible to describe in those terms.

Of course, the scientists themselves do – apparently – manage to get a glimpse of the ‘true’ nature of reality through mathematics. What cannot be expressed in normal language can be written down and in some way understood in the form of equations. And this makes me wonder whether this actually takes those scientists a step closer to a genuine concept of the ideas they’re describing.

If so, it risks leaving the rest of us out on a limb. In mathematics, there appears to be a language that describes the way the universe works. But most of us don’t understand that language in anything like enough depth. And that includes people who would traditionally regard themselves as well educated.

I can’t help wondering whether the new elite – those with the necessary mathematical skills – are set to take on a role that will appear almost religious to the rest of us.

Books that offer insights into the true nature of the universe, but written in a language that only a select few can truly understand… Where have I heard that before?