You’ve heard the expression “We don’t know what we don’t know.” It makes sense. Here’s another: “We don’t know how to know what we don’t know.” Or, to modify it, “Whatever we learned, we learned on the basis of a way of learning we accepted as valid.” Of course, what we seem to learn every so often is that the way we learned what we know can be invalidated when we stumble on a new way of learning. Say, what?
Mollusks. Fast Radio Bursts. Nerves. Now there’s an interesting combination. Here’s another: Conchologists, radio astronomers, neuroscientists, and YOU. Yes, there’s a common thread, and I, like you, am also tied to it.
Mollusks, or more specifically, the cephalopod called the chambered nautilus. You’ve seen them whole and in sections, the shells carefully cut to reveal the chambers that conform, supposedly, to the golden ratio of 1.618.* But just as you differ from other humans, chambered nautiluses also differ as individuals, some a little closer to the golden ratio, some a bit farther from it, mathematically speaking. Still and generally, the nautilid (nautiloid) shells exhibit a very similar spiraling that doesn’t seem to have changed much since nautilids first roamed the seas hundreds of millions of years ago. That seeming lack of evolutionary change is what brings me to mention the smooth spiraling shell of the chambered nautilus here.
When paleontologists and conchologists identify stages of mollusk evolution, they do so on the basis of shell shapes. The spiraling smooth-shelled nautilids seem to have undergone zero evolution for 200 million years. But is that really the case? Remember that I started this out by saying how we know something might change, and with that change can come a change in knowledge and understanding. According to Derek E. Moulton, Alain Groiely, and Regis Chirat, the “smoothness of nautilid shells is merely a mechanical consequence of rapid aperture expansion. The nautilids’ lineage may have evolved more than their shell morphology suggests….”** Hundreds of years of examining shells have imprinted a single way of looking at the evolution of nautilids. We look at the shell, and that tells us that evolutionary change in these organisms is small at best. But what if we could see a new way of seeing? What if we were to look at nautilids from a perspective that ignores the shell? The “how” of knowing about nautilid evolution hasn’t, itself, evolved!
Fast radio bursts are somewhat mysterious emissions of radio light from the distant universe. One of these bursts was detected by undergraduate David Narkevic in 2007, and, upon further analysis, the burst seemed to originate from an object only 3,000 km in diameter; yet, it gave off in an instant the amount of energy our sun releases over a month.*** That’s a bunch of energy. In fact, the energy of the burst led astronomers to doubt it was a real burst, noting that it could have been an artifact of Earth’s noisy inhabitants fond of gizmos like microwaves and smart phones. Duncan Lorimer and Maura McLaughlin of West Virginia University further researched the burst, now dubbed the Lorimer burst, and they have demonstrated that the burst was real. What they have not demonstrated beyond question is the cause of such bursts. There are hypotheses, of course. But why is this a big deal in the world of astronomers?
The bursts of radio waves don’t travel through a complete vacuum. There are electrons out there, electrons that get in the way of the radio light. As the energy from the burst bursts through these electrons the longer and shorter frequencies separate, arriving at Earth’s radio telescopes at different times. That’s the way we detect them. There’s matter between the source and the receiver, and if we can identify the sources of the fast radio bursts, we will have a better knowledge of the distribution of matter in the universe. We’ll know more than we currently know. Fast radio bursts provide us with a new way of knowing, a way of knowing what we don’t know. Thanks, David. And Duncan and Maura.
One doesn’t have to be neuroscientist to know that we’re electrical. We’ve all seen the videos of people being tasered. They lose control when the electric shock runs through them. They fall. They convulse. Who wants to sit in the electric chair that the justice system used to kill killers? Scary thought. Like thinking what would happen if lightning struck you on the top of the head. The National Weather Service says an average of 47 people die from lightning strikes annually, and that’s just in the USA. Definitely, we’re electrical, and electrical systems can shut down with an overload.
So, apparently, our nervous system works by electrical impulses. But, again, the way we know what we know might keep us from knowing what we don’t know. What if, just what if, your nerves work not only by electrical impulses, but also by compression waves? That would make you a mechanical being. Douglas Fox reports an experiment by Thomas Heimburg that suggests our nerves fire mechanically.**** As Heimburg says, “The things that are written in books, they are in contradiction to this [his experiment].”
Whoa! The things that are written in books are in contradiction to his experimental results. Maybe. Maybe not. But here’s the significance. If Heimburg is concluding correctly, we have to rethink what we know about neurons, nerves, and what we are physically. We might argue that his finding is debatable, but until someone can disprove his mechanical hypothesis, we have to doubt our understanding of how our nerves work.
Now, YOU—and me. We are confident of what we know because we are confident about how we know. Change the how, however, and you change the what, the what of shelled animals, the what of the distribution of matter in the universe and the cause of fast radio bursts, and the what of neuroscience. Think carefully now. How many “hows” do you rely on? How many “hows” have you even attempted to question? What you don’t know depends on how you know what you know.
Recall what Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his poem “The Chambered Nautilus”:
Still, as the spiral grew
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new.
As the nautilus leaves a smaller chamber for a larger one, so you and I might think to leave a smaller compartment of knowledge for a larger one. Holmes continues:
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
*https://www.goldennumber.net/nautilus-spiral-golden-ratio/
** Moulton, Derek E., et al., How seashells take shape. Scientific American, v. 318, no. 4, April, 2018, pp. 69-75.
***Lorimer, Duncan and Maura McLaughlin. Flashes in the night. Scientific American, v. 318, no. 4, April, 2018, pp 43-47.
****Fox, Douglas. The brain, reimagined. Scientific American, v. 318, no. 4, April, 2018, pp. 61-67.
Mollusks. Fast Radio Bursts. Nerves. Now there’s an interesting combination. Here’s another: Conchologists, radio astronomers, neuroscientists, and YOU. Yes, there’s a common thread, and I, like you, am also tied to it.
Mollusks, or more specifically, the cephalopod called the chambered nautilus. You’ve seen them whole and in sections, the shells carefully cut to reveal the chambers that conform, supposedly, to the golden ratio of 1.618.* But just as you differ from other humans, chambered nautiluses also differ as individuals, some a little closer to the golden ratio, some a bit farther from it, mathematically speaking. Still and generally, the nautilid (nautiloid) shells exhibit a very similar spiraling that doesn’t seem to have changed much since nautilids first roamed the seas hundreds of millions of years ago. That seeming lack of evolutionary change is what brings me to mention the smooth spiraling shell of the chambered nautilus here.
When paleontologists and conchologists identify stages of mollusk evolution, they do so on the basis of shell shapes. The spiraling smooth-shelled nautilids seem to have undergone zero evolution for 200 million years. But is that really the case? Remember that I started this out by saying how we know something might change, and with that change can come a change in knowledge and understanding. According to Derek E. Moulton, Alain Groiely, and Regis Chirat, the “smoothness of nautilid shells is merely a mechanical consequence of rapid aperture expansion. The nautilids’ lineage may have evolved more than their shell morphology suggests….”** Hundreds of years of examining shells have imprinted a single way of looking at the evolution of nautilids. We look at the shell, and that tells us that evolutionary change in these organisms is small at best. But what if we could see a new way of seeing? What if we were to look at nautilids from a perspective that ignores the shell? The “how” of knowing about nautilid evolution hasn’t, itself, evolved!
Fast radio bursts are somewhat mysterious emissions of radio light from the distant universe. One of these bursts was detected by undergraduate David Narkevic in 2007, and, upon further analysis, the burst seemed to originate from an object only 3,000 km in diameter; yet, it gave off in an instant the amount of energy our sun releases over a month.*** That’s a bunch of energy. In fact, the energy of the burst led astronomers to doubt it was a real burst, noting that it could have been an artifact of Earth’s noisy inhabitants fond of gizmos like microwaves and smart phones. Duncan Lorimer and Maura McLaughlin of West Virginia University further researched the burst, now dubbed the Lorimer burst, and they have demonstrated that the burst was real. What they have not demonstrated beyond question is the cause of such bursts. There are hypotheses, of course. But why is this a big deal in the world of astronomers?
The bursts of radio waves don’t travel through a complete vacuum. There are electrons out there, electrons that get in the way of the radio light. As the energy from the burst bursts through these electrons the longer and shorter frequencies separate, arriving at Earth’s radio telescopes at different times. That’s the way we detect them. There’s matter between the source and the receiver, and if we can identify the sources of the fast radio bursts, we will have a better knowledge of the distribution of matter in the universe. We’ll know more than we currently know. Fast radio bursts provide us with a new way of knowing, a way of knowing what we don’t know. Thanks, David. And Duncan and Maura.
One doesn’t have to be neuroscientist to know that we’re electrical. We’ve all seen the videos of people being tasered. They lose control when the electric shock runs through them. They fall. They convulse. Who wants to sit in the electric chair that the justice system used to kill killers? Scary thought. Like thinking what would happen if lightning struck you on the top of the head. The National Weather Service says an average of 47 people die from lightning strikes annually, and that’s just in the USA. Definitely, we’re electrical, and electrical systems can shut down with an overload.
So, apparently, our nervous system works by electrical impulses. But, again, the way we know what we know might keep us from knowing what we don’t know. What if, just what if, your nerves work not only by electrical impulses, but also by compression waves? That would make you a mechanical being. Douglas Fox reports an experiment by Thomas Heimburg that suggests our nerves fire mechanically.**** As Heimburg says, “The things that are written in books, they are in contradiction to this [his experiment].”
Whoa! The things that are written in books are in contradiction to his experimental results. Maybe. Maybe not. But here’s the significance. If Heimburg is concluding correctly, we have to rethink what we know about neurons, nerves, and what we are physically. We might argue that his finding is debatable, but until someone can disprove his mechanical hypothesis, we have to doubt our understanding of how our nerves work.
Now, YOU—and me. We are confident of what we know because we are confident about how we know. Change the how, however, and you change the what, the what of shelled animals, the what of the distribution of matter in the universe and the cause of fast radio bursts, and the what of neuroscience. Think carefully now. How many “hows” do you rely on? How many “hows” have you even attempted to question? What you don’t know depends on how you know what you know.
Recall what Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in his poem “The Chambered Nautilus”:
Still, as the spiral grew
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new.
As the nautilus leaves a smaller chamber for a larger one, so you and I might think to leave a smaller compartment of knowledge for a larger one. Holmes continues:
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:--
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
*https://www.goldennumber.net/nautilus-spiral-golden-ratio/
** Moulton, Derek E., et al., How seashells take shape. Scientific American, v. 318, no. 4, April, 2018, pp. 69-75.
***Lorimer, Duncan and Maura McLaughlin. Flashes in the night. Scientific American, v. 318, no. 4, April, 2018, pp 43-47.
****Fox, Douglas. The brain, reimagined. Scientific American, v. 318, no. 4, April, 2018, pp. 61-67.
RSS Feed