THE

FORGOTTEN
JOY OF
CURIOSITY

Written by Shahzada Ayub @virrgotech

Origionally posted on VirrgoTech website www.virrgotech.com
Thousands of years ago, our
ancestors took it upon
themselves to make sense of
the world they lived in.

Though they knew very little about the

laws that governed the physical world,
they were fascinated by how they
worked — with precision and unmistak-
able continuity. If anything, they may
have been humbled by the realization
that there’s more to the mystery of this
world than their minds would ever be
able to grasp.
Nevertheless,

the pursuit of knowledge and truth, as

far as the recorded human history is
concerned, never came to a perpetual
halt.
What happened in the years leading up to 3000 BC,
we might never know. But the aggregate of human
knowledge after this period is fairly preserved in one
form or another. We can look back with a debt of
gratitude and recognize that the older generations
played their parts well. Now we, standing on their
shoulders, have a moral responsibility to expand the
horizons of human knowledge.

Although our present understanding traverses a

vast range of disciplines — from the deeper realms
of quantum to the laws of nature on the grandest
scale — we still have a long way to go.
If we look back,

there’re many distant souls to be held in

high regard for the astounding
contributions they made to science and to
the aggregate body of human knowledge.

Anaximander, for example, came along around 600 BC to

recognize for the first time in history that the planet we live
on is free in space and doesn’t need to sit on something.
Aristotle, a prodigious researcher, philosopher, thinker,
and writer appeared around 300 BC to add his own set of
unprecedentedly great contributions, resting his name
among the greatest polymaths of all time. Euclid arrived at
about 325 and, in the course of his gifted life, prepared the
most famous mathematical work ever written in the
history of human quest. Avicenna showed up in the late
10th century, earning his prestigious standing in the annals
of science and leaving behind famous works like The
Canon of Medicine which remained a standard textbook
for centuries in many medieval universities.
Fast forward to the 17th, 18th, and 19th
centuries,

we have Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Issac

Newton, Michael Faraday, and James Clerk
Maxwell who revolutionized our understanding of
the laws of nature. Then, in the not so distant past,
the genius of Einstein unraveled one of the two
pillars of modern physics with his famous
mass-energy equivalence equation: E = mc . 2

Who were these men of extraordinary

contributions?
They were the curious minds who never
said enough and who never stopped ques-
tioning.

In Einstein’s Old Man’s Advice to Youth:

“The important thing is not to stop

questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for
existence. One cannot help but be in awe when
he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of
life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is
enough if one tries merely to comprehend a
little of this mystery each day.”

Well, how curious are we to try merely to

comprehend a little of the mysteries we encounter
each day?
 Do we believe we too have a responsibility
to contribute to the body of human
knowledge as did the past generations?

If that’s too hard a duty, shouldn’t we even

try to understand what’s already been
understood, done, and handed down to us?
It’s a sad situation that individuals who make
up the majority of the so-called knowledge society
principally don’t have a clue how science and
technology work.

If a room is full of today’s literate individuals ,

how many of them do you think would have a
sound understanding of how electricity works,
for example?

In my opinion, not very many.

We have become a generation of entitled

beneficiaries whose only job is to relish the
results of the work done and passed on by
individuals of the past.
It’s time we realized we have a responsibility
to share too. There’s a joy in curiosity and we
should learn how to cultivate it.

The generations who preceded us gave us their

unique gifts in the form of scientific discov-
eries and technological innovations. The
generations who will follow us should not be
dealing with a heritage of hunger, poverty,
global warming, and all the rest of the
problems our indolence, lack of curiosity,
and lack of empathy could cause. They should
not be looking at our contributions in the
fields of science, technology, and human
progress and, in their utter disbelief, dub us
“the bone-idle unit” of the human family
who never cared.
 Thank You!

Written by Shahzada Ayub @virrgotech

Origionally posted on VirrgoTech website www.virrgotech.com