Is it not surprising that in a world steeped in baseless hatred that threatens civilization itself, men and women, both old and young, partly or completely separate themselves from the evil flow of everyday life to devote themselves to the cultivation of beauty, the dissemination of knowledge, the treatment of diseases, the reduction suffering, as if at the same time there were no fanatics multiplying pain, ugliness and torment? The world has always been a sad and confusing place, and yet, poets, artists, and scientists have ignored factors that, if paid attention to, would paralyze them. From a practical point of view, the intellectual and spiritual life, at first glance, are useless activities, and people engage in them because in this way they achieve a greater degree of satisfaction than otherwise. In this work, I am interested in the question at what point the pursuit of these useless pleasures suddenly turns out to be the source of some expediency, which was not even dreamed of.
We are told again and again that our age is the age of the material. And the main thing in it is the expansion of the chains of distribution of material wealth and worldly opportunities. The resentment of those who are not to blame for being deprived of these opportunities and a fair distribution of goods, diverts a significant number of students from the sciences in which their fathers were engaged in towards the equally important and no less relevant subjects of social, economic and state issues. I have nothing against this trend. The world in which we live is the only world given to us in sensations. If we do not improve and do not make it fairer, millions of people will continue to die silently, in sorrow, with bitterness. I myself have been pleading for many years for our schools to have a clear vision of the world in which their pupils and students are destined to spend their lives. Sometimes I wonder if this current has become too strong, and if there will be enough opportunities to lead a fulfilling life, if the world is rid of useless things that give it spiritual importance. In other words, has our notion of usefulness become too narrow to fit the changing and unpredictable capacities of the human spirit?
This question can be considered from two sides: scientific and humanistic, or spiritual. Let's first look at the scientific. I was reminded of a conversation I had a few years ago with George Eastman on the topic of utility. Mr. Eastman, a wise, polite and far-sighted man, gifted with musical and artistic taste, told me that he intended to invest his vast fortune in the promotion of the teaching of useful subjects. I dared to ask him who he considers the most useful person in the world of science. He immediately replied: "Marconi." And I said, "No matter how much we enjoy radio and how much other wireless technologies enrich human life, in fact Marconi's contribution is insignificant."
I can't forget his astonished face. He asked me to explain. I answered him something like: “Mr. Eastman, the appearance of Marconi was inevitable. The real award for all that has been done in the field of wireless technology, if such fundamental awards can be given to anyone, deserves Professor Clerk Maxwell, who in 1865 made some obscure and difficult to understand calculations in the field of magnetism and electricity. Maxwell gave his abstract formulas in his scientific work, published in 1873. At the next meeting of the British Association, Professor G.D.S. Smith of Oxford declared that "no mathematician who has skimmed through these works can fail to realize that this work presents a theory that greatly complements the methods and means of pure mathematics." Over the next 15 years, other scientific discoveries added to Maxwell's theory. And finally, in 1887 and 1888, the scientific problem still relevant at that time, connected with the definition and proof of electromagnetic waves that are carriers of wireless signals, was resolved by Heinrich Hertz, an employee of the Helmholtz laboratory in Berlin. Neither Maxwell nor Hertz thought about the usefulness of their work. The thought just didn't cross their minds. They did not set themselves a practical goal. The inventor in the legal sense, of course, is Marconi. But what did he invent? Just the latest technical detail, which today is an obsolete receiving device called "coherer", which has already been abandoned almost everywhere.
Hertz and Maxwell may not have invented anything, but it was their useless theoretical work that a smart engineer stumbled upon that created new means of communication and entertainment that allowed people with relatively little merit to gain fame and make millions. Which one was helpful? Not Marconi, but Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz. They were geniuses and did not think about the benefits, and Marconi was a smart inventor, but thought only about the benefits.
Hertz's name reminded Mr. Eastman of radio waves, and I suggested that he ask the physicists at the University of Rochester what exactly Hertz and Maxwell had done. But in one thing he can be sure that they have done their job, without thinking about practical application. And throughout the history of science, most of the truly great discoveries that ultimately turned out to be extremely beneficial to mankind were made by people who were not driven by a desire to be useful, but only by a desire to satisfy their curiosity.
Curiosity? Mr. Eastman asked.
Yes, I replied, curiosity, which may or may not lead to something useful, and which is perhaps the outstanding characteristic of modern thinking. And this did not appear yesterday, but emerged back in the days of Galileo, Bacon and Sir Isaac Newton, and must remain absolutely free. Educational institutions should pay attention to the cultivation of curiosity. And the less they are distracted by thinking about the immediacy of application, the more likely they are to contribute not only to the well-being of people, but, no less important, to the satisfaction of intellectual interest, which, one might say, has already become the driving force of intellectual life in the modern world.
II
Everything said about Heinrich Hertz, about how he quietly and imperceptibly worked in a corner of the Helmholtz laboratory at the end of the XNUMXth century, all this is true for scientists and mathematicians around the world who lived several centuries ago. Our world is helpless without electricity. If we talk about the discovery with the most immediate and promising practical application, then we will agree that this is electricity. But who made those fundamental discoveries that led to the emergence of all developments based on electricity over the next hundred years.
The answer will be interesting. Michael Faraday's father was a blacksmith, and Michael himself was an apprentice bookbinder. In 1812, when he was already 21, a friend took him to the Royal Institute, where he listened to 4 lectures on chemistry from Humphry Davy. He kept the notes and sent copies of them to Davy. The next year he became an assistant in Davy's laboratory, and solved chemical problems. Two years later, he accompanied Davy on a trip to the mainland. In 1825, at the age of 24, he became director of the laboratory of the Royal Institution, where he spent 54 years of his life.
Soon Faraday's interests shifted towards electricity and magnetism, to which he devoted the rest of his life. Earlier important but difficult to understand work in this area was done by Oersted, Ampère, and Wollaston. Faraday dealt with the difficulties they left unresolved, and by 1841 had succeeded in studying the induction of electric current. Four years later, the second and no less brilliant era of his career began, when he discovered the influence of magnetism on polarized light. His early discoveries led to countless practical applications where electricity has reduced the burden and increased the number of opportunities in the life of modern man. Thus, his later discoveries led to much less practical results. Has anything changed for Faraday? Absolutely nothing. He was not interested in usefulness at any stage of his unsurpassed career. He was absorbed in unraveling the mysteries of the universe: first from the world of chemistry, and then from the world of physics. He never questioned usefulness. Any hint of her would curb his restless curiosity. In the end, the results of his activities still found practical application, but this was never a criterion for his continuous experiments.
Perhaps, in connection with the moods that surround the world today, it is time to highlight the fact that the role played by science in making war more and more destructive and terrifying has become an unconscious and unintended by-product of scientific activity. Lord Rayleigh, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in a recent address pointed out that it is human stupidity, not the intentions of scientists, that is responsible for the destructive use of people hired to fight in modern warfare. The innocent study of the chemistry of carbon compounds, which has found countless applications, has shown that the action of nitric acid on substances such as benzene, glycerol, cellulose, etc., led not only to the useful production of aniline dye, but also to the creation of nitroglycerin, which can be used both for good and for harm. A little later, Alfred Nobel, dealing with the same issue, showed that by mixing nitroglycerin with other substances, it is possible to produce solid explosives that are safe to use, in particular, dynamite. It is to dynamite that we owe our progress in the mining industry, in the construction of such railway tunnels that now cut through the Alps and other mountain ranges. But, of course, politicians and soldiers abused dynamite. And blaming scientists for this is like blaming them for earthquakes and floods. The same can be said about poison gas. Pliny died due to the fact that he inhaled sulfur dioxide during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius almost 2000 years ago. And scientists have isolated chlorine not for military purposes. All this is true for mustard gas as well. The use of these substances could be limited to good causes, but when the airplane was improved, people whose hearts were poisoned and their brains corrupted realized that the airplane, an innocent invention, the result of long impartial and scientific efforts, could be turned into a tool for such massive destruction, oh which no one dreamed of, and did not even set such a goal.
From the realm of higher mathematics one can cite an almost uncountable number of similar cases. For example, the most obscure mathematical work of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries was called Non-Euclidean Geometry. Its creator, Gauss, although recognized by his contemporaries as an outstanding mathematician, did not dare to publish his works on Non-Euclidean Geometry for a quarter of a century. In fact, the theory of relativity itself, with all its infinite practical implications, would have been quite impossible without the work done by Gauss during his stay in Göttingen.
Again, what is known today as "group theory" was an abstract and inapplicable mathematical theory. It was developed by curious people, whose curiosity and swarming led them to a strange path. But today "group theory" is the basis of the quantum theory of spectroscopy, which is used daily by people who have no idea how it came to be.
The whole theory of probability was discovered by mathematicians whose true interest was to rationalize gambling. With practical application it did not work out, but this theory paved the way for all types of insurance, and served as the basis for vast areas of physics in the XNUMXth century.
I'll quote from a recent issue of Science magazine:
“The value of the genius of Professor Albert Einstein reached new heights when it became known that a mathematical physicist 15 years ago developed a mathematical apparatus that now helps to unravel the mysteries of the amazing ability of helium not to solidify at temperatures close to absolute zero. Even before the American Chemical Society Symposium on Intermolecular Interactions, Professor F. London of the University of Paris, now visiting professor at Duke University, credited Professor Einstein with the concept of an "ideal" gas, which appeared in papers published in 1924 and 1925.
Einstein's 1925 reports were not about relativity, but about problems that seemed to have no practical relevance at the time. They described the degeneration of an "ideal" gas in the lower limits of the temperature scale. Because Since all gases were known to liquefy at the temperatures in question, scientists must have overlooked Einstein's fifteen-year-old work.
However, a recent discovery in the dynamics of liquid helium has given new value to Einstein's concept, which had been left out all this time. When cooled, most liquids become more viscous, less fluid, and more sticky. In layman's terms, viscosity is described as "colder than molasses in January", which is actually true.
Meanwhile, liquid helium is a discouraging exception. At a temperature known as the “delta point,” which is only 2,19 degrees above absolute zero, liquid helium flows better than at higher temperatures and, in fact, is almost as cloudy as a gas. Another mystery in its strange behavior is its high thermal conductivity. At the delta point, it is 500 times higher than copper at room temperature. With all its anomalies, liquid helium is a major mystery to physicists and chemists.
Professor London stated that the best way to interpret the dynamics of liquid helium is through the perception of it as an ideal Bose-Einstein gas, using the mathematical apparatus developed in 1924-25, and also taking into account the concept of electrical conductivity of metals. Through simple analogies, the amazing fluidity of liquid helium can only be partially explained if the fluidity is depicted as something similar to the wandering of electrons in metals when explaining electrical conductivity.
Let's look at the situation from the other side. In the field of medicine and public health, bacteriology has played a leading role for half a century. What is her story? After the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the German government founded the great University of Strasbourg. His first professor of anatomy was Wilhelm von Waldeyer, and later professor of anatomy in Berlin. In his memoirs, he noted that among the students who went with him to Strasbourg during his first semester, there was one inconspicuous, independent, short young man of seventeen years old named Paul Ehrlich. The usual anatomy course consisted of dissection and microscopic examination of tissues. Ehrlich paid almost no attention to preparation, but, as Waldeyer noted in his memoirs:
“I noticed almost immediately that Erlich could work at his desk for a long time, completely immersed in microscopic examination. Moreover, his table is gradually covered with colored spots of all kinds. When I saw him at work one day, I went up to him and asked him what he was doing with all this colorful assortment of flowers. Whereupon this young student of the first semester, most likely taking a regular course in anatomy, looked at me and politely replied: "Ich probiere." This phrase can be translated as "I'm trying / trying", or as "I'm just fooling around." I told him, "Very well, keep fooling around." I soon saw that, without any instruction on my part, I found in Erlich a student of extraordinary quality.
Waldeyer was wise to leave him alone. Ehrlich worked his way through the medical program with mixed success and finally graduated, largely because it was obvious to his professors that he had no intention of practicing medicine. Then he went to Wroclaw, where he worked for Professor Konheim, teacher of our Dr. Welch, founder and creator of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. I don't think the idea of utility ever crossed Erlich's mind. He was interested. He was curious; and kept fooling around. Of course, this tomfoolery of his was controlled by a deep instinct, but it was purely scientific, not utilitarian motivation. What did it result in? Koch and his assistants founded a new science - bacteriology. Now Ehrlich's experiments were conducted by his fellow student Weigert. He stained the bacteria, which helped to distinguish them. Ehrlich himself developed a method for the multicolor staining of blood smears with dyes on which our current knowledge of the morphology of blood cells: red and white is based. And every day, thousands of hospitals around the world use the Ehrlich technique in blood testing. Thus, aimless tomfoolery in the dissecting room of Waldeyer in Strasbourg grew into a main element of daily medical practice.
I will give one example from industry, taken at random, as there are dozens of them. Professor Berle of the Carnegie Institute of Technology (Pittsburgh) writes the following:
The founder of the modern production of synthetic fabrics is the French Comte de Chardonnay. He is known to have used
III
I am not saying that everything that happens in laboratories will eventually find unexpected practical applications, or that practical applications are the real rationale for all activities. I stand for abolishing the word "application" and freeing the human spirit. Of course, we will also free harmless eccentrics in this way. Of course, we will waste some money in this way. But what is much more important is that we will free the human mind from the shackles and unleash it on adventures that, on the one hand, took Hale, Rutherford, Einstein and their colleagues millions and millions of kilometers deep into the most remote corners of space, and on the other hand, they released the limitless energy imprisoned inside the atom. What Rutherford, Bohr, Millikan and other scientists have done out of sheer curiosity in an attempt to understand the structure of the atom has released forces that can transform human life. But one must understand that such a final and unpredictable result is not the rationale for their activities for Rutherford, Einstein, Millikan, Bohr or any of their colleagues. But let's leave them alone. Perhaps no leader in education is able to set the direction in which certain people should work. Losses, and I admit it again, seem colossal, but in reality it is not so. All the total costs in the development of bacteriology are nothing compared to the benefits gained from the discoveries of Pasteur, Koch, Ehrlich, Theobald Smith and others. This would not have happened if the thought of a possible application had taken possession of their minds. These great masters, namely scientists and bacteriologists, created an atmosphere that prevailed in the laboratories in which they simply followed their natural curiosity. I am not criticizing institutions such as engineering schools or law schools, where utility inevitably dominates. Often the situation changes, and practical difficulties encountered in industry or laboratories stimulate the emergence of theoretical studies that may or may not solve the problem, but which may suggest new ways of looking at the problem. These views may be useless at the time, but with the beginnings of future achievements, both in a practical sense and in a theoretical one.
With the rapid accumulation of "useless" or theoretical knowledge, a situation arose in which it became possible to start solving practical problems with a scientific approach. Not only inventors, but also "true" scientists indulge in it. I mentioned Marconi, an inventor who, as a patron of the human race, actually only "took advantage of other people's brains." Edison is in the same category. But Pasteur was different. He was a great scientist, but he did not refrain from solving practical problems, such as the condition of the French grapes or the problems of brewing. Pasteur not only coped with urgent difficulties, but also drew from practical problems some promising theoretical conclusions, "useless" at the time, but probably in some unforeseen way "useful" in the future. Ehrlich, essentially a thinker, energetically took up the problem of syphilis and worked on it with rare stubbornness until he found an immediate practical solution (the drug "Salvarsan"). Banting's discovery of insulin to fight diabetes, and Minot and Whipple's joint work with liver extract to treat pernicious anemia, are in the same class: both discoveries made by scientists who realized how much "useless" knowledge was accumulated by people. , indifferent to practical implications, and that this is the right time to ask questions of practicality in scientific language.
Thus, it becomes obvious that one must be careful when scientific discoveries are fully attributed to one person. Almost every discovery is preceded by a long and complex history. Someone found something here, and the other - there. The third step succeeded, and so on, until someone's genius puts it all together and makes a decisive contribution. Science, like the Mississippi River, springs from small streams in some distant forest. Gradually, other streams increase its volume. So, from countless sources, a noisy river is formed, breaking through dams.
I cannot cover this issue comprehensively, but I can say this in passing: for a hundred or two hundred years, the contribution of vocational schools to relevant activities will most likely consist not so much in training people who, perhaps tomorrow, will become practicing engineers, lawyers , or by doctors, how much in the fact that even in the pursuit of exclusively practical goals, a huge amount of apparently useless work will be performed. Out of this useless activity emerge discoveries which may well prove incomparably more important to the human mind and spirit than the attainment of the useful ends for which the schools were founded.
The factors I have cited highlight, if need be, the colossal importance of spiritual and intellectual freedom. I mentioned experimental science and mathematics, but my words also apply to music, art, and other ways of expressing the free human spirit. The fact that this brings satisfaction to the soul, which is striving for purification and upliftment, is the necessary basis. By justifying in this way, without referring explicitly or implicitly to utility, we determine the reasons for the existence of colleges, universities and research institutes. Institutions that liberate subsequent generations of human souls have every right to exist, regardless of whether this or that graduate makes a so-called useful contribution to human knowledge or not. A poem, a symphony, a painting, a mathematical truth, a new scientific fact, all already carry the necessary justification required by universities, colleges and research institutes.
The subject of discussion at the moment is particularly acute. In certain areas (especially in Germany and Italy) they are now trying to limit the freedom of the human spirit. Universities have been transformed to become tools in the hands of those who hold certain political, economic, or racial beliefs. From time to time, some careless person in one of the world's few remaining types of democracies will even question the fundamental importance of absolute academic freedom. The true enemy of humanity is not hidden in a fearless and irresponsible thinker, whether he is right or wrong. The true enemy is the man who tries to seal the human spirit so that it does not dare to spread its wings, as it once did in Italy and Germany, as well as in the UK and the USA.
And this idea is not new. It was she who inspired von Humboldt to found the University of Berlin when Napoleon conquered Germany. It was she who inspired President Gilman to open Johns Hopkins University, after which every university in this country more or less sought to rebuild. It is to this idea that every person who values his immortal soul will be true no matter what. However, the causes of spiritual freedom go much further than authenticity, whether in the field of science or humanism, because it implies tolerance for the full range of human differences. What could be dumber or funnier than race- or religion-based likes and dislikes throughout human history? Do people want symphonies, paintings and deep scientific truths, or do they want Christian symphonies, paintings and science, or Jewish or Muslim? Or maybe Egyptian, Japanese, Chinese, American, German, Russian, communist or conservative manifestations of the infinite wealth of the human soul?
IV
I believe that one of the most impressive and immediate consequences of intolerance towards everything foreign is the rapid development of the Institute for Advanced Study, founded in 1930 by Louis Bamberger and his sister Felix Fuld in Princeton, New Jersey. It was located in Princeton partly because of the founders' commitment to the state, but, as far as I can tell, also because the city had a small but good graduate school with which the closest cooperation is possible. The institute owes so much to Princeton that it will never be appreciated. The institute, when already a significant part of its staff had been recruited, began to work in 1933. Eminent American scientists worked at its faculties: mathematicians Veblen, Alexander and Morse; the humanists Meritt, Levy, and Miss Goldman; journalists and economists Stuart, Riefler, Warren, Earl and Mitrani. Here we should add scientists of no less importance, who have already formed at the university, the library, and the laboratories of the city of Princeton. But the Institute for Advanced Study is indebted to Hitler for the mathematicians Einstein, Weyl, and von Neumann; to the liberal arts scholars Herzfeld and Panofsky, and to a number of young people who have been influenced by this distinguished group in the last six years and are already strengthening the position of American education in every corner of the country.
The Institute, in terms of organization, is the simplest and least formal institution imaginable. It consists of three faculties: Mathematics, Faculty of Humanities, Faculty of Economics and Political Science. Each of them included a permanent group of professors and an annually changing group of employees. Each department conducts its business as it sees fit. Within the group, each person decides for himself how to manage his time and distribute his forces. Employees who came from 22 countries and 39 universities, if they were considered worthy candidates, were accepted into the United States by several groups. They were given the same level of freedom as professors. They could work with this or that professor by agreement; they were allowed to work alone, consulting from time to time with someone who could be useful.
No routine, no divisions between professors, members of the institute or visitors. The students and professors at Princeton University and the members and professors of the Institute for Advanced Study intermingled so easily that they were almost indistinguishable. Education itself was cultivated. Outcomes for the individual and society were not in the area of interest. No meetings, no committees. Thus, people with ideas enjoyed an environment that was conducive to reflection and exchange. A mathematician can do mathematics without being distracted by anything. The same is true for the representative of the humanities, and for the economist, and for the political scientist. The number and level of importance of the administrative department were reduced to a minimum. People without ideas, without the ability to concentrate on them, would be uncomfortable in this institute.
Perhaps I can briefly explain with the following quotations. In order to attract a Harvard professor to work at Princeton, a salary was allocated, and he wrote: "What are my duties?" I replied: "No obligations, only opportunities."
A capable young mathematician, after spending a year at Princeton University, came to say goodbye to me. When he was about to leave, he said:
“Perhaps you would be interested to know what this year meant to me.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Mathematics,” he continued. - develops rapidly there is a lot of literature. It has been 10 years since I received my Ph.D. For a while I kept up with my subject of research, but lately it has become much more difficult to do, and there has been a feeling of insecurity. Now, after a year here, my eyes have been opened. The light came on and it became easier to breathe. I am thinking about two articles that I want to publish soon.
- How long will it last? I asked.
“Five years, maybe ten.
- And then what?
- I'll be back here.
And a third example from a recent one. A professor from a major Western university came to Princeton at the end of December last year. He planned to resume work with Professor Moray (of Princeton University). But he suggested that he turn to Panofsky and Svazhensky (from the Institute for Advanced Study). And here it is with all three.
“I must stay,” he added. Until next October.
“It will be hot here in summer,” I said.
“I'll be too busy and too happy to care.
Thus, freedom does not lead to stagnation, but it is fraught with the danger of overwork. Recently the wife of an English member of the Institute asked, "Does everyone work until two in the morning?"
Until now, the Institute did not have its own buildings. At the moment the mathematicians are visiting the Fine Hall of the Princeton Department of Mathematics; some in the humanities at McCormick Hall; others work in different parts of the city. Economists are now occupying a room in the Princeton Hotel. My office is located in an office building on Nassau Street, among shopkeepers, dentists, lawyers, chiropractors, and Princeton University scientists doing local government and community research. Bricks and beams don't matter, as President Gilman already proved in Baltimore some 60 years ago. However, we lack communication with each other. But this shortcoming will be corrected when a separate building called Fuld Hall is built for us, which the founders of the institute have already taken up. But the formalities should end there. The Institute should remain a small institution, and it will be of the opinion that the staff of the Institute wants to have free time, feel protected and be free from organizational issues and routine, and, finally, there should be conditions for informal communication with scientists from Princeton University and other people. , who from time to time can be lured to Princeton from distant regions. Among such people were Niels Bohr from Copenhagen, von Laue from Berlin, Levi-Civita from Rome, Andre Weyl from Strasbourg, Dirac and G. H. Hardy from Cambridge, Pauli from Zurich, Lemaitre from Leuven, Wade-Jery from Oxford, and also Americans from the universities of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, Chicago, California, Johns Hopkins University and other centers of light and education.
We do not make promises to ourselves, but we cherish the hope that the unhindered pursuit of useless knowledge will affect both the future and the past. However, we do not use this argument in defense of the institution. It has become a haven for scientists who, like poets and musicians, have been given the right to do whatever they want, and who achieve more if they are allowed to.
Translation: Shchekotova Yana
Source: habr.com