The value of science and scientific value

From the time that I connected a long series of batteries to a light bulb and blew it up, to the time I attempted to make rock sugar from cane sugar through crystallization, I was already a scientist. Throughout the times that I was doing all these experiments and also as a student, I never knew what the value of science really was. As a scientist, that is somewhat equivalent to asking yourself what am I doing? and why am I doing this? But now the question is asked of all the whole community of scientists. What is the answer?

To self

The simplest way is to look at the value to oneself. Most of us do science for a few of these reasons, we like science, we like the career it provides, we like to use science to reach out to other jobs. Some, like myself, find that doing experiments in the lab offers inner peace. A place of my own to think and dream. But a variety of reasons can exist that will allow us to determine the value of science to oneself. Of scientific value of oneself, we need to ask ourselves what difference will our science make? An incremental change? Groundbreaking? Minimal? If we do not exist, will we cause a difference to the field? Einstein, Fleming, Marie Curie all were scientists who made a fundamental difference to the field. Their scientific value is immense. But how about the other unsung heroes? The lab technicians? The students? The postdocs?

To society, to country

In our modern society today, we embrace technology. Technology is founded in early science. The handphones that you are probably reading this article on has technology that is derived from early scientific discoveries many years ago. Those discoveries are critical or else this handphone would not exist. Somewhere along the line, scientific value of something to society will converge and allow us to unite the society in one common language. Take, for example, the science behind COVID-19 spread, in whatever language, the principle is the same, the value of understanding it (and thereby undertake the appropriate mitigation measures) is immense and could be life-saving.

The rapid development of human material civilization began in modern times, about the 16th century. So why did the development take so long before modern times? Although this involves many factors, the constraint of the people's ideas are undoubtedly the critical factors. Most things that happen in nature were unquestioned, or the people were relatively under-equipped to examine the different phenomena. The scientific discovery since modern times has changed all this gradually. In 1687, Newton published Principia, which unified all mechanical laws into a simple formula f = ma, and combined with the law of universal gravitation, people suddenly found that the operation of the sacred star could be calculated! The change of concept brings about the liberation of thought, the liberation of thought brings about the liberation of productivity, which directly leads to the first industrial change represented by steam engine. Subsequently, Britain became the world's top scientific power.

Later in the 19th century, on the basis of Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction effect, Maxwell established electrodynamics in 1864, which unified all phenomena of light, electricity and magnetism into an equation system. So far, most of the phenomena that people can realize can be explained scientifically. And then, the second industrial change represented by power technology has been followed. Germany and the United States became the world scientific power at this stage.

So, classical physics has been so successful, is it possible to explain all the problems? In fact, classical physics itself contains a huge dilemma. Newtonian mechanics tells us that as long as the initial state of particles is determined, according to the equations of mechanics, the future motion state of all particles can be predicted accurately in principle. So, is the state of movement of atoms and molecules that constitute the world and even human beings themselves in the future predicted? Have all the events, including what you just ate for your meal, been determined at the time of the big bang? Is this called destiny? The impact on this idea is obviously huge. But this questions many fundamental issues. Even as Hawking famously said: “I have noticed that even those who assert that everything is predestined and that we can change nothing about it still look both ways before they cross the street.”

Now naively I am going to try to ask. How can we break out of this mechanical determinism? Probably quantum mechanics? In daily life, a cat is either "alive" or "dead", and can only be one of these two states. In the micro world described by quantum mechanics, the cat can not only be in one of two states of "alive" or "dead", but also in the superposition state of "live" and "dead". Quantum superposition tells us whether a cat is "alive" or "dead" is not known in advance, but depends on how it is observed. More precisely, the state of quantum objects will be affected by measurement, so quantum mechanics immediately brings a revolutionary concept: the behavior of observers can affect the evolution of the system! This concept makes people realize that the movement law of micro particles is totally different from the classical object, so people do not have to tangle with whether it is determinism; and the deep understanding of the micro particle law like electron eventually gave birth to modern information technology, which led to the third industrial change. In this process, Japan seized the opportunity to turn into the next scientific superpower.

At every step of the way, I have tried to link how critical changes in the understanding of science and leaps in understanding have propelled one country to the forefront of scientific development. In a developed country, perhaps a very ordinary vegetable farmer can go on vacation twice a year. High yields of crop as well as abundant harvest can allow greater profits to roll in. Compare and contrast this to a developing country farmer who lives a hard life of daily toil and bustle. I think that due to advanced scientific development, the fruits of science in the developed country can benefit the public and the people. Lesson is that for our country, we must have a good understanding of science and technology and one day our people can also have a more comfortable life.

As an active member of the scientific community in Singapore, I can say that this is the time for the rapid development of the national economy. With the progress and continuous refinements in funding mechanisms, Singapore can support the basic research and application of frontier technologies such as quantum technology. Perhaps we can one day claim to have achieved the international leading position in the field of sustainability, or alternative proteins or quantum technologies. Recently, we must also pay close attention to the fact that various countries are having tension with each other and rules like export control can hinder the development of technology which are critical to the economy. We need to have home built technologies and have high inherent scientific value as a country. The way we can achieve the leading position is through structured planning and good foresight. Extreme long range planning is critical so that we can develop our technologies to an advanced level in the world. Once the technology enters the translation stage, we will be hard to stop.

But we can never be complacent. We must develop a very complete system to promote innovation, especially in the combination of economic finance and science and technology. Participation of large enterprises is critical. Investment into manpower and material resources to develop the technology is critical. To do that, we need talent. It will be for the long-term well-being for the country and the people to support science through economic and financial means, especially for basic science.

I have deliberately shown that the value of science or scientific value to self and the individual takes up a small part of the overall big picture. Science can be a vehicle for a country's development. Science can also be the engine that propels a society forward. It is actually through the contribution of talented and committed individuals that we are able to secure our country's future and push towards a better life for our future generations!