Simple DNA gradually morphed and evolved, so that you had the coming into being of ever more complex and diverse creatures, until one day you wake up and find there are peacocks and giraffes. Nature is an open-ended experiment based on morphing a DNA code, and ours is an open-ended experiment based on morphing a crochet code.
Margaret WertheimNature doesn't feel compelled to stick to a mathematically precise algorithm; in fact, nature probably can't stick to an algorithm.
Margaret WertheimIt turns out that hyperbolic structures are very common in nature, and the place where lots of people encounter them is coral reefs. Sea slugs, and a lot of other organisms with frilly forms, are biological manifestations of hyperbolic geometry, which is also found in the structure of lettuce leaves and kales, and some species of cactus.
Margaret WertheimSeeing and playing with physical objects can enable access to symbolic ideas. When I studied physics and math at university it was all done through equations and textbooks whereas artists go to art school and start making stuff; they fling paint at the walls, they dance and bash things together with giant bits of metal. Our society has come to think of science as being a very abstractified thing, and art as being a materialized thing.
Margaret WertheimI have an abiding interest in how ordinary people produce knowledge, and what it means for individuals to know the world. I thought I'd be a theoretical physicist because I love physicists' views of the world - I find general relativity and quantum theory thrilling - but I have always felt uneasy with the idea of an Ultimate Truth. One of the functions of science is to help us instrumentally; it helps us to build things like microchips and GPS satellites. But another function of science in the modern world is to help us feel "at home in the universe".
Margaret WertheimSimple DNA gradually morphed and evolved, so that you had the coming into being of ever more complex and diverse creatures, until one day you wake up and find there are peacocks and giraffes. Nature is an open-ended experiment based on morphing a DNA code, and ours is an open-ended experiment based on morphing a crochet code.
Margaret WertheimScience is not just for an elite few. Science's vision of the universe is becoming increasingly inaccessible. That doesn't mean it's wrong. On some levels, general relativity is right, because we have to take its calculations into account to produce accurate GPS systems. Instrumentally, it's correct to something like twenty decimal places. But epistemologically and psychologically, it is not available to most of our population.
Margaret Wertheim