Stretching the Truth

Does that make it the truth?

It’s 2017.

A fine afternoon for reading.

My phone has been robbed. We’re about to go for elections. I had recently finished a book by Nassim Taleb and he recommended the works of Karl Popper.

The Open Society and Its Enemies.

Sounds catchy.

I get the book.

In the book, Popper destroys Plato’s philosophy like a skilled surgeon. Every sentence is a scalpel. He dissects the ideas so well I am convinced never to read the works of Plato. I wouldn’t want to be under his spell.

So lucid for a philosopher, I make a point of reading all of his work. He stretches what Plato would consider truthful, and it breaks. He creates a standard that I uphold for years until I start to question his conclusions.

After destroying Plato, he goes after what I have believed ever since I could remember — religion. I was born and raised catholic. I believed in prayer. I always had my Pieta prayer booklet. If a rosary was not around my neck, it was that far from my fingers.

Karl Popper kept on sinking his dagger stretching my heart-strapped truths so much, I got to a point where I stood up and decided to take a walk. My mind was confused.

Why did I never ask myself these questions? His arguments are rational. Why was I blind to them? I have previously questioned the existence of God, but I found an alternative solution. But this? This is new.

Popper stretched my truths.

It was the beginning of a life of questions more than answers.

He went from rags to riches

This ain’t my story ‘bout rags to riches More ‘bout how I mastered physics

— Benny the Butcher

He wasn’t that well-grounded in math. He was, however, a keen observer and note-taker. In the past, scientists were known as natural philosophers. They would ask questions about nature, and interact with it not in the lab, but outside it.

Finding the right balance was helpful if not essential.

Our scientist in question developed the skill of asking questions but perfected the art of experimentation. Luckily, he got the chance to travel Europe like one of the Royal members, despite not being any of them, and when he got back, he was armed and ready to stretch the truth.

In the process, he became a master of what would soon become the bedrock of one of the branches of physics — electrodynamics.

Michael Faraday had moved from rags to riches. While commanding an attentive crowd on several Friday evenings, he displayed his mastery of physics. He developed laws in magnetism and demonstrated how it was entwined with electricity.

However, he still had questions to which he didn’t have answers. For instance, he never understood the polarity complex. Suppose a bar magnet has the usual poles — north and south. If you cut the magnet in half, you’re not left with north on one end and south on the other. A magnet does not have a single pole. It has two.

Also, what was initially north will continue to be north and vice versa for the south pole, while the new end will take on the opposite pole. Also, he never understood how arbitrary the polarity happened on a magnet.

Without induction, you could never predict either of the poles. You would only know that the magnet will have a north and a south pole.

Our natural philosopher was stretching the truth even after he had already etched his name in history. This level of fame has its drawbacks.

A Nobel Prize sets you back

I don’t know who woke up and decided the Nobel would be ‘the prize’. The same could be said about the Oscars or the Grammys.

This award, despite the glamour it will bring, sets you far from further stretching the truth. Firstly, before anyone awards you this glorious recognition, you will be faced with a lot of retribution.

Nobody will believe your idea. Well, not technically nobody, but the swath of scientists who disagree with you would be so significant, you’d feel like you were alone. Boltzmann felt his ideas were attacked so much that it is believed he committed suicide for this very reason. This was after he had done everything he thought to validate the conversion of the second law of thermodynamics into a statistical equivalent.

They askin’ what work y’all niggas put in, I’m like, “What didn’t we?”

— Benny the Butcher.

Peter D. Mitchell had an idea about the development of energy in cells that was years ahead of any form of acceptance. He, however, braved the attacks until he emerged victorious. There indeed was a bidirectional turbine attached to the cell membrane responsible for the making of the energy-rich molecule — ATP.

This interphase between insignificance and recognition is the point when the truth is stretched. You might even begin to question if your ideas are okay, valid, or just plain stupid. A new idea, since it is novel in many ways, differs from the continent of ideas that were prevalent at the time.

Best believe you will be challenged. It will be challenged. The truth will be squeezed out of it.

Once you have established yourself as a paragon of knowledge, and acknowledged by such a prestigious award, the tables flip. Everybody accepts you, they accept your ideas and want to listen to more of them.

Often, the one who gets the award is the person who has spent the most time with the idea. So they will always have something extra to say about them. But unlike the previous phase, few people will be willing and ready to challenge you.

Everybody will be more inclined to accept than to challenge you.

You dare challenge a Nobel laureate?

The challenger is the one we can now consider bonkers.

It was the reason for Herbet Simon’s sadness. After he won the Nobel Prize in Economics, he never got the kind of challenge he got and liked before the hailed award.

For that reason, one can never get to know if their truths are well-stretched or if they are only the resonating sounds from an echo chamber. It would take what Max Planck mentioned to have a new wave of people to test your ideas.

The old ones have to die for a new group to emerge. In this case, however, you might die with the old ones and the new ones test your ideas after your death.

That’s what Einstein did.

Stretching the fabric of space and time

Ever the enthusiast of documentaries, I was so confused when my brother told me that light does not travel in a straight line.

It was right there, in all textbooks, and here he was, claiming he could defy text.

I was in high school. He had watched a documentary on the theory of general relativity. It is the perfect example of the stretching of one’s truth. Mine to be exact. And Newton’s too.

Einstein built his foundation from the works of James Clerk Maxwell, who was considered the Louis Pasteur of physics.

Imagine knowing all along how your shadow forms. Through straight lines. Then someone boldly tells you that light can bend.

Who’s the crazy one?

It turned out that Einstein was right. He believed his ideas so boldly, he asked other scientists to test them. Leaving your ideas vulnerable is a measure of confidence in them. You can either publish it in whichever forum or discuss it in public.

Gregor Mendel only published his findings. The journal was so obscure that his results got buried in the volume of research back then. The volume of work published today is magnitudes larger, making the nuggets of truth harder to identify. With the advancement of technology, widespread understanding of the scientific method, and the increasing pressures to publish or perish, valuable work gets lost in the rat race.

Mendel must have been lucky.

Einstein did both. He published his work and openly announced it in public. His ideas would, however, take decades before they were accepted.

One of his longest rivals, Ernst Mach was a respected physicist. He openly rejected Einstein’s ideas so much, that it would be difficult not to imagine Einstein not questioning himself. He, however, remained steadfast in his ideas.

J. Cole captures the moment with his perfect display of rap eloquence spiced up with double entendres.

Eureka, Einstein on the brink of the theory of relativity Really no MC equal, feel me?

Lyrical genius.

J. Cole then tells the world how he feels when he leaves a booth, almost similar to how Einstein felt when he turned out to be the right one after various tests of the theory of the general theory of relativity.

Stretchin’ the truth, no, I never stress in the booth They feel the pressure, me? I feel like I just left the masseuse

In a single swoop, Einstein stretched our truths about space, time, and reality.

What I’m trying to say is…

Truths have to be stretched.

Faraday was left with questions he never answered despite having laid the foundation for quantum field theory. Einstein too believed his theory was false, and continued to find a better one for as long as he lived.

Compared to these giants, putting my voice out there about my ideas on evolution sounds like a whimper. But I’m willing to have my ideas stretched rather than openly embraced.

If you have an idea and are willing to share it with the world, I would insist on having your tendons in check because what is set ahead of you is without question.

You and your ideas will be stretched.

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