Speculate to Accumulate
If I’m going to say something I think is true, I have a simple rule.
I expect to be able to answer basic questions about it. Questions like “How do you know that?” Where did you get your information from?” and “Can you show me what you mean?” I also expect to be able to answer any reasonable supplementary questions that arise from answering these.
That’s the plan anyway, but the truth is, I frequently forget in the passion of the moment. On the other hand I still have the rule and at least I try to stick to it most of the time.
If I think I can’t answer those questions, I have three main choices.
I can remain silent until I can answer them.
If I have answers, but not with me, I can go get the answers and come back with them.
I can go ahead but make sure it’s understood that I’m speculating.
It’s natural to think that speculation is a poor cousin to solid facts, but nothing could be further from the truth. Speculating is one of the many ways that we progress to solid facts. We speculate to accumulate knowledge. I picture it like this:
Some of us live close to the boundary that separates the things we know from the things we don’t yet know. One way to think of this is that, as the body of knowledge grows, the size of the boundary also increases, like an inflating balloon. People that mentally live close to that boundary cast their minds out into the unknown to speculate upon what might be true out there. Then they drag themselves back into the real world where they can design experiments or make observations to find out if they’re right. Most of the time they’re not, this is the nature of speculation, but every now and then they hit the jackpot. I like to think of people who don’t want to learn new things or have their assumptions challenged, as living more in the middle of the balloon. Speculation can be the early stage of deductive reasoning and some of the most important discoveries have been made this way. Here are a couple of examples.
Albert Einstein was well known for spending the best part of his waking life living mostly in his head, only emerging from speculation and deductive reasoning to stun the world with the results of his deep thoughts. He was also well known for never conducting any experiments himself, being too busy thinking. Instead he indicated what experiments and observations could be made to confirm the validity of his theories, leaving it to others to do the business, which of course they did. In thinking about his way of working Einstein said this:
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.
Image from NASA's Cosmic Times
The bending of light
In 1687 Isaac Newton, writing about gravity, declared that the gravitational pull of the sun would bend the track of a photon of light because a photon has a small amount of mass, and would be slightly attracted towards the sun. In fact a photon doesn't have mass.
In 1915 Albert Einstein deduced that the distortion of space by a large mass like the sun is the underlying cause of such an apparent attraction and that it would be around twice the mount of bending that Isaac Newton had calculated.
Although neither of these scientists conducted any experiments or made any observations to test these deductions, there were plenty of other people who did. The most famous of these occurred in 1919 during a total eclipse of the sun. A total eclipse is the only time you can see stars near the sun’s edge. If you know which star you are looking at, then you know where it should be in the sky. Einstein’s deductions would be proved right if the stars apparent position had shifted from where it should have been.
Source - mblneoardog YouTube channel
Watch a video explaining this (left).
For a more detailed description watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z6EItMIU7k from the YouTube channel of Gregory Litman.
This observation has been successfully repeated many times since then during the 68 total eclipses we have had since 1919.
Gravity Waves
Again in 1687 Isaac Newton wrote that the effect of gravity is instantaneous. If the sun was to suddenly disappear, the earth would immediately shoot off at a tangent to become a lonely wandering planet in interstellar space, provided it didn’t bump into anything on the way out.
Einstein again corrected this in 1915, writing that the force of gravity would travel at the speed of light. In this scenario, if the sun were to suddenly disappear, the earth would only shoot off after 8 minutes and 20 seconds. Einstein also wrote that the force of gravity would be delivered by a gravity wave or particle. He called it a graviton.
The existence of gravitons is much harder to observe than the bending of light. Einstein himself reckoned that the extreme weakness of gravity waves might make them impossible to detect. He was nearly right. It took almost exactly 100 years before they were finally observed in 2016 emanating from the collision of two massive black holes over a billion light years away. Since then there have been three more observed, the last one in 2017. Below is a video explaining the first detection of gravity waves by the physicist Brian Greene. This is followed by my son Steve Mould’s video visualising gravity waves.
I take a classic demonstration of warping spacetime and figure out how to demonstrate gravitational waves with the addition of some wheels and a drill. Source - Steve Mould’s YouTube channel.
Most of these discoveries would not have taken place without great minds like Newton and Einstein spending so much time speculating and deducting. Of course anybody can speculate, but perhaps with less confidence than these giants of knowledge. But there is a way that anyone can speculate productively.
Interior of a London Coffee-house, 17th century from WIkimedia Commons
Sharing
Sharing is a good way to test out your speculations. The Einsteins of this world might get by in solo contemplation but most of us gain stimulation and the opportunity to test our ideas by sharing them with others. Some of the better-known historical examples are centred on café or coffee house culture, where people have gathered together to debate and philosophise for well over 300 years, particularly in Paris and London. I am a member of a non-fiction book group that meets in a pub. For me it is the perfect environment for throwing around ideas and bouncing them off other people. Any group of people interested in exploring new ways to understand things and advance our knowledge of the world around us just needs to meet regularly somewhere nice with good friends, have some food and drink and and get on with it.
Scrutiny
Finally, the good thing about having the rule that I apply to my own communications, the one I mentioned at the beginning of this article is that you can legitimately apply it to the things that other people say. It seems entirely reasonable to expect the same standard of credibility from others that you apply to yourself, even if it is a bit arrogant.