Yearning for Wonder: Science, Mystery, and the Limits of Knowledge
What happens when a mathematician, a biologist, and a physicist explore the deepest mysteries of nature, mathematics, and the human search for meaning?
At New York Encounter 2025, a cultural festival in the heart of New York City, Martin Nowak, Rob Phillips, and Evelyn Tang engaged in a profound discussion about science as an act of attention, the role of beauty and cooperation in evolution, and why the universe will never be fully understood. The panel was sponsored by my research project on Meaning and Mystery in Science, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Dr. Martin Nowak is Professor of Mathematics and of Biology at Harvard University. He is a leading researcher in the fields of evolutionary biology and mathematical biology. Martin has established cooperation as the third fundamental principle of evolution, besides mutation and selection. His work has helped to create diverse fields such as evolutionary dynamics, virus dynamics, mathematical oncology, and the evolution of cooperation. He has published more than 500 papers, many of them in top journals such as Nature and Science, and six books.
Dr. Rob Phillips grew up in San Diego, California, in a home filled with books, which led to a love affair with books and reading that has continued to this day. He is the Fred and Nancy Morris Professor of Biophysics and Biology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Phillips received his PhD in physics at Washington University in 1989. Prior to the great fun of a life in science, he spent seven years of travel, self-study, and work as an electrician. Though teaching is often viewed within research universities as a chore, Phillips finds teaching to be a central part of his attempt to learn more about how the world works. He is currently engaged in several book projects, one of which, with Hernan Garcia, provides a quantitative view of how genes are turned on and off.
Dr. Evelyn Tang is an assistant professor in the physics department and the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and moderated the conversation.
During the conversation, Rob shared how the spirit of wonder animates a life in science—whether observing a murmuration of starlings or watching Greenland pass beneath an airplane window. Martin argued that mathematics is not merely a tool but the language of nature itself, guiding both physics and biology. He described cooperation as the third fundamental principle of evolution, alongside mutation and selection, and linked it to the science of love—a vision of human life shaped by complete self-giving.
Evelyn guided the conversation into philosophical terrain, referencing Simone Weil’s idea that true attention requires receptivity and a readiness to be transformed.
Here's the paradox at the heart of the conversation: Science is driven by curiosity, doubt, and an openness to the unknown—yet its greatest discoveries hint at something deeper, perhaps even infinite. For Nowak, this leads to God. For Phillips, it calls for humility. Tang helps us see that it demands that we keep asking, wondering, and paying attention.
What do you think? Is the universe ultimately knowable by science, or will we always stand before the unknown?
Watch the video of our conversation below (which includes some slides from the speakers). You can read an unedited transcript below.
Unedited transcript
[Applause]
Evelyn
Good evening, everyone, and on the Encounter’s behalf, welcome both here at the Metropolitan pavilion and those who are following us online. I am Evelyn Tang, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, and I will moderate this event before starting I would like to thank spiritual yearning in science for sponsoring our conversation. Spiritual yearning in science is an initiative directed by Dr Brandon Vaidyanathan as a Catholic University of America and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
And now I would like to briefly introduce our speakers. The Full bios are on the encounter website that you can read at leisure. But first of all, Martin Novak is a professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard. He's a leading researcher in the fields of evolutionary biology and mathematical biology. Martin has established cooperation as the third fundamental principle of evolution, besides mutation and selection. He has published more than 500 papers, many of them in top journals such as Nature and Science, and six books. Martin's most recent books beyond and within are poetic explorations of some of the deepest questions that arise at the interface of science, philosophy and religion, and I think we're going to hear more about them tonight.
Rob Phillips is a dear friend and grew up in California in a home filled with books, leading to a love affair with books and reading that continues to this day. He is the Fred and Nance Morris professor of biophysics and biology at Caltech, prior to a great fund of life and science, Rob spent seven years of travel, self study and working as an electrician, although teaching is often viewed within research universities as a chore. Rob finds teaching to be central and learning about how the world works. He's currently engaged in several projects, one of which was Ananda Sierra provides a quantitative view of how genes are turned on and off. I would like to invite them to tell us a bit more about themselves, and so please go ahead, Robert, he likes to go ahead and view some slides. Cool.
Rob
Good evening, everyone. Thank you. It's such a huge privilege to be here. So as Evelyn said, my name is Rob Phillips, and I'm a professor in biology and physics at the California Institute of Technology, and I have to say that that's been an amazing stroke of luck. I've spent the last 25 years there, and tonight, my hope for myself in this interesting conversation is to try and give you a little bit of a sense of the Spirit that animates spending a life in science, and for me, it really begins very simply with the two words I wonder. So let's just watch this together. Quietly.
So what was my point here? That's a very mundane thing, looking at a sea lion swimming around in a school of fish. But for 2000 years, people have been wondering about the starlings over Rome, just for example, how they fly in those weird murmurations and curiosity really doesn't have to defend itself. It's a beautiful thing that we really still don't understand. So again, I'm excited for our conversation. I've had a great time listening to many of you already today and meeting you. And I wanted to comment not so much on the content of science, although I'd love to talk about that, but rather about the values. And some of you might have seen this book long ago. I remember it was on my parents shelf. I looked at it. It didn't make a very big impression on me, but I do like this idea that. Be some of the most important things we know we learned when we were very young.
And the reason I bring this up is that in physics, we have a monthly journal called Physics Today, and it has semi technical journals that help all of us keep up with everything from the smallest to the very largest in the universe. But it also has these one page opinion pieces, and I really like this one. You're not supposed to read what it says, so forget about that. But his title really is inspired by that book that I just showed you, and what he wanted to talk about is, what are the values that one has to actually be a physicist, and I would say a scientist more generally. So I thought I would just mention a few that mean a lot to me, and that may come up in our conversation. And of course, if I run into you in the hallway, maybe it would be fun to chat about them. So for sure, curiosity. So yesterday, I was at Rockefeller University with a friend of mine. He's not that I care about such things, but he's a Nobel Prize winner and a postdoc. But I'm serious about that. I don't care very much, and I don't think he does either, but he was telling me about his postdoc, and he said, This guy is so amazing because he's childlike in his curiosity. And both of us agreed that that sort of innocence, the childlike innocence, is something that actually is often lost, and in many ways the most fun in science is not losing that openness. It's hard to learn things if you've already made up your mind. And so when we're looking at the natural world, for example, the sea lion, there's all sorts of possible explanations of things, and we don't know, a priori, what they are, which leads to, I don't know.
There's a sort of technical thing that we often use in science, which is called a null hypothesis. And for me, the most useful null hypothesis is, I don't know. Love is the truth wherever it may lead. Gratitude, you don't know other people's narratives not being opinion full This one's very important to me. I learned it from Robert Nozick in his book The exam in life, I don't have to have an opinion about everything. And it's liberating, I would say. And that's helpful in science, the mystery of the world that's already present in a simple, mundane thing, like a sea lion swimming in a school of fish. Amazement that the human mind has achieved what it has in terms of uncovering a little bit of the mystery of the world around us in a way that in general, we agree on implicitly, if not explicitly. And for me, also respect for the achievements of the past.
You know, one of the things that came up and is shown in that video that I very much appreciate. I'm very dedicated to celebrating Archimedes. I know that Martin's going to talk about mathematics as well. He and I share this great love of the tradition of mathematics. I'll come to that in a moment, not taking things for granted. Knowledge is hard. Be careful improving upon silence is hard. And instead of here's what I know, instead saying here's the way I'm thinking about it. So in my teaching, one of the things that's been my greatest privileges is trying to take students out into the world. I have a huge responsibility when I meet 20 year olds, 18 year olds at Caltech. And so I've led on the order of 20 field trips to the Galapagos, to Indonesia, to New Zealand. And often we spend 20 to 40 minutes a day in silence, every one of us with one of these little green notebooks, which is waterproof, and we basically either draw the rocks or draw the animals or write questions that start with the words, I wonder. So this one may be perhaps weird for this audience, but most of the way we've been communicating with each other today has been with words, and that's cool, but I just wanted to put a plug in for the idea that maybe it's interesting to communicate about the world using mathematics and numbers. And it's really actually very powerful. And also, I know Martin will mention this, or I think he will, it's also, in a certain sense, very spiritual, at least for me. My final thought is just to say that in Paris, at the ESPCI, which is a scientific institution where Pierre and Marie Curie worked and where they discovered radium, if you look on this wall, you'll see this lion from Miguel de Unamuno. I don't remember how to pronounce his name. It says to question and doubt. It says true science teaches, above all, to doubt. So for me, that's really the essence of things. So that's all I got. So I'm looking forward to the discussion.
Martin
it's a great honor and joy for me to be here. I have been at the New York encounter once before, and it's great to be back. So here we are. All that is needed is attention. That's the topic of our little conversation here, and I was very, very moved by the video that is on the on the home page of the new encounter 2025 and so I also use it in my talk several times. All that is needed is attention. So we are living in the following world where many people think that science is a distraction from spirituality. Science is. Almost something that is at odds with believing in God. And I want to change this. I want to change this in the opposite view. Because I think if we pay attention to what science really says, it leads us to God. And that's the message of my talk, science leads us to God. So when we pay attention, we have to ask, like a child. Rob mentioned the child, like approach like a child, what are the most important things that actually science puts as landmarks out there? What are the three things that really happened?
And the one thing is the origin of the universe. The second thing is the origin of life, and the third thing is the origin of language, of human language. And what do these events give us? The universe gives us physics. This is really the beginning of a physics that is unfolding. Stars are being produced. They make chemical elements. So that gives us physics and chemistry. The Origin of Life gives us biology. What does language give us? The first thing that language gives us is prayer, because as soon as humans had language, they were spiritual beings. The findings in the shoe we cave and in other places are expressions of a kind of spirituality. So I would argue, as soon as you have language, you talk about spirituality, about God. As soon as you have language, you discover the world of ideas. And here I mean platonic ideas, forms. You have poetry, you have philosophy, you have the discovery of mathematics, you have the discovery of science, of technology, engineering and medicine. All that matters very, very deeply to us is a derivative of language. And why is language as big as the origin of life itself? Because it gives rise to a new way of evolution. Because we have evolution no longer in the genetic realm. We have it also in the cognitive linguistic realm.
This is the time scale, if we want to add a few more other events. So when did it happen? Big Bang, 13 point 8 billion years ago. Sun, Earth, Moon 4.6 billion years ago. Physicists always know things very, very well, and my critics criticized me for worshiping physics. But I asked, What is there not to worship? And in biology, things are sort of more complicated. So origin of life we are maybe on Earth, we don't really know, but what we all agree is that bacteria and are here, where they are 3.5 billion years ago, the higher Celsius organelles 1.8 billion years ago. And all the while, until 600 million years ago, if you come to earth, you see no sign of life without a microscope. So this was all microscopic life, things that you see with the free eye comes into existence 600 million years ago. This is the complex multicellularity. And then the last big thing, what is the most interesting thing that happened in the last 600 million years? That is the arrival of human language, because it gives rise to the new way of evolution. So the forces of physics, we can conclude and evolution leads to living beings that raise their voices in praise of God that discover underlying, unchanging truth. And here I stating a fact. This is a scientific fact, physics and evolution have led to people who recognize spirituality. What is it that evolves? Jens Mayer, a Harvard biologist, pointed this out, loosely speaking, we talk about evolution of genes and so but what really evolves? Is the population. So the carrier of the evolutionary process is the population. The two classic ingredients of evolution recognized by Darwin even though not properly understood, is mutation and selection. So Darwinian evolution is based on mutation and selection. Selection means that different types grow at different rates. And to this, my work over the last 20 years and the work of many others, has really added cooperation as a fundamental additional principle of evolution. And Cooperation means that individuals work together so well that they form a higher level of organization.
Cooperation, in my mind, is the master architect of the evolutionary process. Whenever something amazing happens in evolution, like the origin of life itself, or the first cells or human language, cooperation needs to be involved. Cooperation is that which leads to human language. So I call it the master architect of the evolutionary process. Cooperation means helping others. And here we have three examples of what helping others means. The one is 3 billion years old. This is cyanobacteria. And every so often, a cell dies in order to feed the others with nitrogen. So this is the ultimate sacrifice. The cell dies. Such others can live social insects, as Wilson was mentioned this afternoon. These individuals don't reproduce. They help another individual to reproduce, 120 5 million years ago. This is Vincent Van Gogh's painting of the Good Samaritan, and we all know what that is. That is cooperation among humans.
One nice element of this analysis that winning strategies of cooperation are generous, hopeful and forgiving. This is based. Based on a game theoretic analysis of how to win those strategies that succeed. They know how to be generous, they know how to be hopeful, and they know how to forgive. So therefore, evolution is not only competition. It's also cooperation. It was cooperation from the beginning, the great discoveries of evolution are impossible without cooperation. And finally, cooperation is a preparation for altruism, for agape and for love. This is why it is okay now to talk of humans, but to ask of humans to actually like each other, because without cooperation, we would have been the product of just some fight out there. Nevertheless, we are now at this stage where the survival of intelligent life on Earth is actually in a critical situation, in my opinion. So for the survival of the human species, we need more than what we have now. We need global cooperation, and we need cooperation with future generations, and right now, we are actually doing exactly the opposite. We don't cooperate on a global scale, and we don't cooperate in order to leave a better world to the next generation. What we need is a science of love. And Science of Love is actually a term that is coined by one of my favorite saints, and you will encounter her at the very end. We need a science of love, a pandemic of goodness and a return to God. We need attention in order to solve this problem of global cooperation. And here begins a new life with this attention. So if science makes you aware of that which matters, the encounter with a great love gives us a glimpse of a mysterious presence, the ultimate beauty and love, whom we have always expected but never met. And this kind of encounter led me to write these books.
For many years, I wanted to write books that bring together science and religion, science and God, but I didn't really find the voice. And then suddenly the voice that was in me was the idea that I let a female Divine Presence talk about it while I'm only listening. So the encounter with a great love has the power to transform world. And this first book Beyond is really a meditation on God and love. It's a dialog between a male fausci and voice and a mysterious female presence, an unnamed Beatrice, that was actually written by one of the people who commented on the book who becomes his guide to leave the cave of shadows. What beyond wants to say is that beyond this world of change is an unchanging reality. And this unchanging reality is, for example, represented in asthmatics or in truth, but also in love and in God. In order to see this, all that is needed is attention. Just in the last few days, I published another book, and this is called within. And here the idea is really that God is waiting for us within, as our teacher, as the love of our life, as a lover and beloved. And if you have this view, then you realize from every pair of eyes that is looking at you, it is God that is looking at you. And you also realize that the purpose of human life is to find God by love. And this book is completely inspired and devoted by one of the greatest saints that lived in the last 500 years. And this is her, and one of my favorite quotes of her is, in the heart of the church my mother, I will be love, and thus I will be all things as My desire finds its direction. Thank you very much.
Evelyn
wonderful. I think we're very curious about how your own personal journey and experiences have shaped, you know, all of these beautiful fruits that you've been telling us about. So we're curious about how your scientific questions and ideas arise. And in particular, why do you believe that mathematics and harmonious principles govern nature. So Rob You spoke about science and this quest, this constant doubting, this constant search for truth. This is an exhausting quest. Why did you devote your life to it? On Martin that you believe that mathematics cooperation governs nature? These seem like audacious claims and audacious quests, given how messy nature is. Why are we looking for these principles and these ideas?
Rob
Yeah, well, maybe I'll take a crack at both of those. So as far as how, you know, I think there's no one answer, obviously, and everybody's different. But in my case, I would say there's maybe four different kinds of things. So one is amazement. So I want all of you to imagine the following crazy experiment. I have my hand, my arms out. You cut off this arm. This arm grows shorter. This arm starts to grow when they're the same length, they grow back out. So that sounds crazy, but that's exactly what you will observe in a microscopic organism with a microscope called Climate amonis. And you know that's enough. It's so interesting and so unusual. Well, that that's enough to say is that worth spending five years of a graduate student's life on dissatisfaction? You know, that's another example. No. But seriously, it's a huge responsibility. When a 20 year old comes to you and says, I want to do a PhD, you're asking them to spend five or six years of their life working on something. So I feel like you have to take that seriously. And I'm telling you, I think that fascinating question is worth, worth it. I would say dissatisfaction, you know, the fact that there are things we should understand that we don't. So that's, that's a big one for me. And then where questions come from is learning and teaching. I think that that's, you know, there's no distinction between teaching and research for me. Just a quick note before Martin goes on, the subject of the audacious notion of principles. I think evidence forces it on us. You know, Caltech sent out an email a few years ago saying, show up at the athletic field at such and such time, because there's going to be a transit of Venus. There were 10 micro telescopes set up, and we went over there as a family, and sure enough, Venus appeared. It crossed the sun and it left. You know, an eclipse is, you know, it's not controversial. It's, it's evidence of these audacious principles, I guess is what I would say, because the mathematics works,
Martin
yes. So it's, uh, it's interesting to note that both Plato and Aristotle held mathematical knowledge in high regard. They held mathematical knowledge higher than things that you know based on experiences. But they did not know something that is very important. They did not realize that mathematics was the language of nature, ultimately, because at this time, this was not established. So it was kind of an additional trick that was used by somebody to do certain things. But it was not realized as the language of physics, and definitely not as biology. It was in it was actually Johannes Kepler, who was the first person to believe in a physical interpretation, a physical reality of a mathematical calculation. And I would also say Galilei. And so therefore physics developed very strongly with this connection with mathematics, but biology didn't have this. So at that time it was it was understood the heavens were perfect and the heavens could be described mathematically the planets, but the earth was so messy that mathematics doesn't work here and is not sort of real. Much later came this idea that biology is also subject to mathematical analysis. And this is what has fascinated me throughout my life, the mathematics of biology. And I would argue, we have reached a stage now where in biology we know things if we know them mathematically. We understand evolutionary aspects if we can understand them mathematically
Evelyn
Well, I think we would all agree, given that we are trying to use mathematics, the three of us to study biology. Let's go to the theme, the provoking theme of our panel itself, which is all that is needed is attention. This is a very strong claim. How do you feel about it? Do you agree with it? And even better, could you share an example from your own experience where attention or wonder allowed you to discover something new? And I think related to this is, you know, Robert Rob already said that in research and teaching to him, that connects it. So if attention is important to you, does this shape your teaching and how we encourage our students to to think and consider today, in our panels today, we have been discussing so much about the role of technology and how that impacts the way that students you know don't look up as much as they did, or don't speak to each other as much as we did. How do we inculcate or foster this attention? Or, relatedly, what has been the role of teachers in our own lives?
Martin
I would take it in the following way, that sometimes we are blindly accepting scientific statements and in order to really interpret them, we need attention. So I give you, I think, two examples. One example is the scientific statement that was made. Science has shown the universe exists for no reason and has no purpose. And so now you have to pay attention what is being said here actually, to really understand whether you agree with this or not. So first of all, the statement itself assumes that the person who said it has a method to distinguish between a universe that has a purpose and the universe that doesn't have a purpose, and has a master to distinguish between a universe that exists for a reason and the universe that exists for no reason. And science somehow has this is not true if you think about it. So science does precisely not show that. So this is a philosophical statement if you want to say this, but science doesn't do this something else, which I find very interesting. Sometimes there was a strong insistence that evolution is taught in the following way, evolution is an unguided process. So when you talk about evolution, you have to say it's an unguided process. So if I hear this sentence, I have to ask, unguided by what? So you are already an ACS, you know. So why do you say it's an unguided process? Do you also say gravity is an unguided process? So I think we need attention when we want to interpret science properly, to give us a broader world view and to tell us who we are. Maybe
Rob
I'll tell a story that happened a couple months ago on a United flight. I'm excited. I already got my flight for tomorrow. I know my seat. I have a right hand window seat on a 787, and I was flying back from Europe, and for a great reason, the captain, a woman on United, she came back to greet all the people in business class. And I said, I'm really excited about Greenland today. And you all might not believe this, but I'm telling you the truth. In the middle of the flight, the captain came back to wake me up because she said it was one of the greatest days she's ever seen. The reason I bring this up is I'm always very puzzled. I find your question in a way puzzling, which is, I don't understand how people don't pay attention. Just to give you an example, why are all the windows closed when you're flying over Greenland, but seriously, you know, like mine's open. And I was sitting there, and a person next to me called the flight attendant and said, Could you tell I could hear her? She said, could you tell that guy that I'm watching a movie and I he's got the window open, I said. And she rotated by 180 degrees and told me that. And I said, could you tell her that I'm flying in an aluminum tube at roughly the speed of sound, that Greenland is right down there. And if you ask somebody 300 years ago, would you like to see Greenland from the sky, they probably say yes. So, so that's what I tried out. Wow, thank you. Okay, well, so, so I don't know. I mean, honestly, I feel really out of place because kids notice things, and I just feel like maybe, here's the way I would say it is, I think that we don't take ourselves seriously. That's my honest answer to you about the question of attention, which is, if you have a thought, like in science, if you have a thought and you take it seriously, you just gave yourself maybe five years work, right? So if you take it seriously, you've got to follow it. You can't just say like that. You have to follow it. So that's what that's a formal way to have attention, I guess you. So I trust that process a ton, not only in science, but in life, like if I pay attention, I feel it pays off anyway. That's very personal. It's subjective. It's not it's not anything anyone else might share. But that's that's my take on it.
Evelyn
Yeah, I think that. No, the reason why this panel here exists, and we're putting this idea of attention and science together is precisely because I think in science, the way in which we pay attention is particularly deep. It can go this particularly focused. I'm going to read a quote by Simone Weil where she wrote that attention consists of suspending our thoughts, leaving it detached, empty and ready to be penetrated by the objects. It means holding in our minds within reach of this thoughts, but on a lower level and not in contact with it, the diverse knowledge we have acquired, which we are forced to make use of. So it's a very complex process where you pay attention to something, but you also relate it with lots of other things. We see Greenland that we also think about. Now I'm seeing it from a distance, so I think of a statement, and I'm not just taking the statement at face value, but I'm interrogating it with the different methods that I have of how to understand a statement. And this is particular focus that I think that you know, we'd love to hear you guys speak to, but what that journey has been is very particular and specific, and so also about your experiences and how this might shape your teaching. Rob, you might comment on what you said, though, go ahead.
Rob
So an experiment is actually a way of paying attention. So check this out. So, you know, I just dropped something, and all of us have experienced that at one time or another, but Galileo, you know, he spent years on that. He had to figure out how to slow down time by using inclined plane. You know, there's many Italians here, and I love that. So I just led a tour, actually, of Italy, to go to Galileo's home in Florence, and we went to do Enrico Fermi. So anyway, an experiment, I mean, I don't know if you've thought of it that way, but an experiment is a way of paying attention. That's what an experiment is. It's a formalization of attention, right? I mean, do you buy that? Yeah.
Evelyn
I mean, it's a repeated, constant probing of what's going on. Fantastic. And, yeah, yeah. And we'd also love to hear how this has, yeah, in your teaching. You know, Martin, I think you've been, you know, you told us about how your ideas and mathematics are, perhaps, you know, you tell your students about what do you think about mathematics? And this is challenging because it's not conventional. So we'd love to hear, and Robbie told us about how you bring your students to the Galapagos. So we'd love to hear about how also your ideas about paying attention, about the material and material are brought into your teaching. Or conversely, you know, what has been the role of teachers in your lives?
Martin
So the role of teachers in the life of a scientist is profound. I was very, very fortunate that my PhD advisor, Karl Sigmund, in Vienna, stayed my lifelong friend. And the first thing that I always do when I go back to Vienna as I walk with Him in the forest, and we have the conversations the same kind of conversations we had when I was his PhD student. We've continued to work for many, many years. And my mentor in Oxford was Robert May. He was president of the Royal Society later. But my mentor in this science religion field, Sarah Coakley. She is an ordained priest in the church of England, but she always taught me Catholic philosophy, I'm glad to say so. This is what I learned from her. But here is another element that I think some of the greatest moments where I learned something was from my own students, from the students in class, from the PhD students, from the postdocs, when they gave me answers and surprising insights that really moved me. So I think as a scientist, you are always a learner, and even if you teach a class, you are actually the learner, and you benefit greatly from the questions of the students and from the interactions with the students, yeah.
Rob
So, so first of all, in terms of shaping teaching, I guess I just feel like the constant emphasis on performance metrics really deprives us of what I think of. I mean, this is kind of obnoxious, but I think of there's a Hippocratic oath for teaching, which is, you shouldn't kill souls. I don't, I don't mean that in the, you know, the usual way. But like Evelyn and I, had an amazing experience, which was, we went up to the 100 inch telescope and on Mount Wilson. And any of you that fly to LA, if you get a right hand window seat, you will be able to see where the fires burn. But on the top, you'll be able to see the 100 inch telescope where Edwin Hubble discovered the expanding universe. And I've taken 200 students and faculty members, you and I went there together. It's, it's kind of mind blowing to do that. So I, I guess what, what I would say about how does paying attention focus my own teaching, I don't really care about teaching four year transforms and PDS and all these formal things. I care about, can people start settings with sentences, with the two words? I wonder, as far as teachers for me in particular, I feel that we failed each other. So I left high school after. 11th grade, I really resented my high school experience, which is where I came to my view on the Hippocratic Oath of teaching. And so I think, at least for my teens and something, you know, my greatest teachers were weird people in books like Euclid and Archimedes and things like that. But I agree with Martin, you know, you learn from your students. That's, that's the beauty of this enterprise of science. You know, we're, we're all essentially equally ignorant. The thing about the way I would represent grad school, and I don't know if this is true in the fields that we've heard people from today, but in science, it's a kind of learning about the unknown. You're not learning about the known. You're learning about the unknown. And nobody knows the answer. If somebody knows the answer, you're not working on the right problem.
Martin
That's exactly so, that's exactly right. So this is, is the very beautiful experience of a scientist is that you always stand before the unknown, that's right. And in some sense, the what is known is almost boring, and so we don't even want to look too much at what is known. You are constantly every day, every morning, you get up, you stand before the unknown, and the unknown is always in front of you, and science will never be done, and mathematics will never be done. And that's the beauty of it. And you have to ask yourself, why is this? Why will mathematics never be done? Why will science be never done? And the priest gave me the answer, because God is an infinite being, and we will never understand an infinite being.
Evelyn
So you both have extremely interesting stories and life paths and and also interests, and we'd love to hear how all of this has made you the scientists and mathematicians that you are. So besides reading scientific books and articles, do you read other things or spend time with friends and family? Basically, I'm curious about what helps you in your research, and if there is a relation with your personal pursuits, want to go first?
Rob
Okay, sure. So first of all, I really feel very strongly about this, the subject of this particular session, which is that one has to formalize, paying attention, you know, that asking a question, taking it seriously, and then trying to figure out, how am I going to actually make falsifiable progress on it? You know, there's, there's a lot of hot air, I guess I would say, I think reading, you know the I love the video at the beginning, because I think that it's true that we don't respect, we don't respect, somehow, the past. And I really can't tell you how much I see that in 18 year olds, they don't they don't know that much about the history of science or the history of things more generally. And so it's pretty awesome to be able to read, I don't know, whatever Moby Dick, but also the latest romance novel. I think it's all great. And so you were asking about friends and family. I don't really acknowledge. I just feel like I'm a spoiled person that gets paid to goof around. So it's it's not as though.
Evelyn
Well, Rob regarding, you know, friends and family. I suppose we met because you were bringing together a group of people that you want to build community with. So clearly, you know, friends and community is important to you, for sure. And you know Martin, I've, you know, I met several of your collaborators. I told you before I even met you. So I know also that you have a strong level of collaborators whom you're very close and so clearly this is something that's also important in your in your in your journeys, and that's something that, you know,
Rob
I think we will be actually, maybe this is interesting. Some people have a philosophy like they will go out into the world to find that collaborator, that scientist, that will be most helpful for their enterprise. And I kind of don't share that, because if that person's not fun to interact with, then I'm not going to go hang out with them. So what can I tell you?
Martin
Yes, I also completely agree that I see science very much as a collaborative enterprise, and you absolutely need to work together with people who are your friends. This is where the friends come from. For me, great moments of inspiration, where, when I first came to university, and in physics class, the professor performed an experiment in front of the class, and then he says, in order to understand the experiment, we have to calculate. This was the first time that I realized mathematics was not just there to give homeworks to high school kids, but is actually there understand something. And that fascination then drove me to become, I wanted to become a theoretician, somebody who uses mathematics to describe first chemistry and then biology. And in this endeavor between science and religion, there were many moments when I came to Harvard, I first met Sarah Coakley, and she was a professor in the Divinity School, and I realized from her I could learn how to speak what I wanted to say about science and God, because at that time, I wasn't able to do that. That's cool. Then came a moment when I was deeply fascinated, and I still am, by the Bhagavad Gita. So the Bhagavad Gi. Gandhi calls it the gospel of selflessness. And in the Bhagavad Gita, we are asked to think of the sufferings of others as our own, to see the same God in every other person. The Bhagavad Gita is a call for selfless action. You are asked to act in the world selflessly, but you shouldn't be attached to the outcomes of the action. So the Bhagavad Gita was a huge spiritual inspiration for me, and it is mentioned in beyond. After that, I read the kata Upanishad, and the kata Upanishad describes the soul as fusing with God. Then I asked Sarah COVID Again, do we have the same in Christianity? And she says it is not really the standard vision, but I should read the race of Avila. And so then I read the race of Avila the interior Castro, and I was deeply moved. And for the first time, I got a glimpse what it takes to actually love your enemies, and how she was able to do that. Something has to happen in your life if you want to love your enemies. Then it was done with Theresa, Theresa of Avila and I said, all my life, I knew there is the big Theresa and the little Theresa. And I have never, ever bothered to read anything about the little Theresa. Now I want to find out about the little Theresa. And then I started to read. And I was captivated and mesmerized beyond description, and my life changed. And then I had this feeling she was always present in my life, but I was not worthy yet to know her directly. And at that moment, the revelation came. She revealed herself to me as she has to hundreds of 1000s of other people before me, because this is really her role. She said, My life begins after my test. I will not just be in heaven. I will tirelessly work to bring souls to God, right? That was her mission. In a sense.
Evelyn
That's beautiful. I am so struck by how the both of you have been reiterating this idea that there is this mystery, that even the more we know, the more we don't know, or that there's so much that you would say we don't know, and then we have to ask. And that is always this infinite that's continuing, you know? And Einstein said as well, that the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true arts and science. So this seems to be a theme, something that is urging us on this, that's making us look and so, you know, I'm curious, thus being in friends of nature and its laws that you find, that you discover, does it evoke more profound existential questions than you? And where are these questions leading you? Yeah,
Rob
I actually should have said what I was showing the video of the sea lion that there was. I think it's apocryphal, because I tried to trace this quote, unquote remark from Einstein, where he said, you have two options. You can either treat everything as mysterious or nothing. And I really just find that the former is way better in every regard. You know, it's more useful, it's more or makes you happier. I think to view something as simple as a view out an airplane over Greenland, or just encountering all of you on the stage as you know, kind of mysterious. Of course it for me. I can't speak for anyone else, but of course, it elicits other questions, and I very much appreciate what Martin was saying about mathematics, because that's been one of the great things in my life, is the realization that by pure thought, I could write down an equation that could tell me how old the Galapagos are, you know, like, I know that there's such equation. I didn't look it up any book. I just figured out what it was and wrote it down, and I found out, yeah, that works. But at the same time, as we heard this morning and some of the other talks that may not be helpful when faced with a very human question, you know, like, how to be a parent, you know, let's keep it simple. Anybody that's a parent in the room, I imagine, has understood that feeling, you know, you think you have some concept of what it means to be a parent, and then you get a curveball, and most of us are not good at hitting curveballs, is what I've seen. Yeah, it elicits all sorts of questions. And since there's so many Italians here, I've already said it was to a few of you. There's, there's an Italian author, Dino buchati. I'm not sure I pronounced his name correctly. And my all time favorite short story all time is by him, and I translated it from French to English for my dad, because it didn't exist in English while he was in the process of dying from cancer and and it's it's not something I would normally be attached to. It's very much relevant to all of you, in the sense that if you have a background of Catholicism, it will mean the world to you. But it's called humility, and I feel like that's part of this issue about about the mystery, like it's very easy to march around on this, in this world, acting like you've got the bull by the horns, but in science, nor in life, in my opinion, do any of us have the bull by the horns. You know, there's just always the next thing, the next mystery, the next thing you don't know. Yeah. And so I think that that really calls for humility. Yeah.
Evelyn
That means, in some in some sense, and say, Wow, what's this?
Rob
Yeah, and I don't understand it. Yeah, that's my take, for what it's worth.
Martin
Yeah, it's very difficult to add. This is already such a complete description, but I think one quote attributed to Einstein is that, by my success talks, that his success was based on the fact that he never stopped asking the questions that only a child would ask. Coming back to that something else attributed to him, which I like even more, is actually, if I could explain what I was doing, it wouldn't be research. And this is this sentence I always want to use in my grant writing. I love that. I think it's right that nature is immensely beautiful. And as a scientist, you find nature mysterious, and you ask yourself certain questions and you want to give explanations. So here's another anecdote from the history of science. Johannes Kepler is very much associated with these three laws of Kepler, but these three laws of Kepler, they were basically discovered by Newton.
Newton went through all of Kepler's works and then found these three things out there and realized this is what he can explain with his equation. Kepler himself never considered this his main contributions at all. So the first Kepler law is that the Brandon score an ellipses he considered an embarrassment. This was not a discovery. This is it cannot really be true because it wasn't beautiful enough. And for the second law, he derived an approximation, which he then later proved to be false. Then he forgot about that, and all his life, he used the false approximation for the second law, the third law was hidden in a book of 800 pages on the harmony of the spheres.
So why did Kepler not pay attention to this first three Kepler laws? because when he was 25 years old, he had already discovered the most beautiful thing that is out there. He had discovered why there are six planets and why they have the relative distance from each other. This needed to be explained at that time. So at that time, the solar system had six planets, and they had a certain distance, that distance could be measured. And Kepler understood why, and this is how he did it. He at first used two dimensional models of mathematics to have polygons and circles, so like a triangle and then a circle around it, then maybe a square and a circle around it, and he tried to fit it in some sense. And whatever he did, it didn't work. And then he realized, I'm stupid. The universe is not two dimensional. It's three dimensional. So I will do the same thing in three dimensions. So in three dimensions, what are my solids? The platonic solids. So there are only five platonic solids in three dimensions. So he has five platonic solids, six spheres inside and outside. He arranges them a little bit and has the right distances. At that moment, he realizes this is how God created the solar system. And he persuaded the Emperor to build that model in silver. So for him, that was the biggest contribution. But not quite right, but very beautiful,
Rob
yeah. But I mean, I think I love that, and I agree with it, and you can, we can just keep going, you know, like Lamarck had his ideas about evolution and so on. And I think that there's something for all of us to learn. First of all, like philosophically about humility. It also has to do with how hard it is to figure stuff out, and it takes hundreds of yours. So I don't know. I personally find when I'm walking around and I run into all the answer havers kind of like, well, if you know, maybe you're you've got the platonic solids arranged to give me the distances of the planets.
Evelyn
So unfortunately, our time is coming to a close. I would like to remind all of you that at 7pm so right after this event, Martin will be available to sign his new books beyond and within at the human adventure book table right outside the auditorium. And I want to give one important announcement before closing this event, this encounter is a little big miracle in the heart of New York City. It is a place for all those who seek belonging. So we invite you to give generously at our donation table outside this auditorium or in a couple of clicks at the New York encounter.org/donate and now please thank me, and please join me in thanking our speakers and again.
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