Convergence
Author: Peter Watson
Published by : Siman & Schuster,UK
Pages : 544
Rs. 699
In the first decade of the twentieth century, around 1913, the scientist community in the West was agog with brilliant and sustainable results achieved through positive research, done through cooperative effort. It was not planned.
Joint research just happened. But, the result which was obtained was an eye opener to the scientists all over the world. Extraordinary new concepts emerged through their work done jointly or, by several new breed of scientist and researchers believed in close encounters and increasingly greater social intercourse among scientists for laying the foundations for the future.
Until the year 1880 the researchers were prone to work in isolation and keep their output confidential and it did not occur to them that other disciplines may have something to contribute to their own discipline, and vice versa.
But the situation started changing thereafter, especially between 1910 and the commencement of the First World War. The legacy of the culture of the past was to keep their research as a secret and not to dabble in to other disciplines to, ensure pristine purity in their pasture.
From 1880, things began to change. Scientists became freer in their approach and some started taking help of their colleagues in other disciplines.
This is the origin of Convergence. Gradually, more and more scientists found, as the world opened more and more, that association and hand holding between scientists of different disciplines was not only necessary but inevitable.
Convergence is a history of modern science but with original and significant twists. Various scientific disciplines, despite their very different beginnings and disparate areas of interest, have been coming together over the past 100-120 years conveying coalescing to identify one extraordinary master narrative: History of the Universe, from the time of the Big Bang and how scientists belonging to different and distant regions and languages, cultures, could make the world a more liveable place, hopefully in the not too distant future. Some of the prominent scientists in this direction were Niels Bohr, Issac Newton, J J Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, Albert Einstein, Max Planck and some others.
They were of different nationalities, different educational and financial background, and there was no common culture amongst them. Fortunately, for science and for the world of human beings, they commenced interacting with each other and very soon started discussing professional matters.
They also realized that in their discipline also they could benefit from knowledge from others, and vice versa. Thus, on an informal basis began the march of ‘convergence’. It is not exactly known, who took the initiative and worked out the process of obtaining and involving more than one discipline for solving a problem like going deep in the belly of the mother earth or flying in the space to capture the stars.
Suffice it to say that it is generally accepted that J J Thomson who was Director of the Cavendish Laboratory and the man who, in 1897, discovered the ‘Electron’ as a fundamental unit of the matter for which he had won the Nobel, and Niels Bohr, a young Danish scientist and researcher gave push to the idea or process of convergence.
In one of the most riveting and important unifications in science was Bohr’s Trilogy in which he had unified physics and chemistry convergence which led to Nobel prize for Bohr for physics in 1922, is considered as a pioneering example of convergence.
He explained how the electrons were arranged on concentric orbits that related to the elements atomic weight , how one element was related to others with similar properties, and why were some more reactive than others depending on the arrangement of electrons in the outermost orbits. This is difficult for most average readers to comprehend. So we leave it at that.
Andrew Ellicott Douglass was researching on the effect of sunspots on the weather and climate. It was generally known that after every 11 years or so, when the spot activity is at its height, the earth has to face storms and torrential rains.
Douglass found out, after studying the rings on the trunks of the trees cut in the forests in several parts of the world, it would be possible to know the rainfall and other related issues or occurrence of famines and migrations in many areas. He also found out that rings on the tree trunks come thick or slender or distorted and the rings can be made to reveal the history which is not recorder.
Peter Watson is a well known author of 25 books of fiction, non-fiction (ideas) and non-fiction (arts). A smaller and simpler version of this book is needed.
