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When we talk about the stars or the inside of a knife blade, we must get accustomed to talking about things we don't understand; because our explorers bring back such imperfect maps, and also because we all have minds too feeble for the real wonders of the world.
These lines come from a book for children published in 1931 -- The Stars for Sam, by W. Maxwell Reed. My folks gave me the book when I was about ten years old. My recent reading of Oliver Sacks's memoirs reminded me of the book, which I no longer seem to have (although admittedly the boxes in my basement contain many mysteries). Amazon put me in touch with a used book dealer, however, and I was able to purchase a used copy for $20.
I loved the book as a kid, but I recall feeling that it was a difficult book. And I can see why. The Stars for Sam is written very clearly, using concrete examples throughout, and is written with a humorous tone in places. But it resolutely refuses to "dumb down" modern science for lazy children.
The book contains descriptive chapters, describing for readers what was known at the time about the sun, each of the planets (including recently-discovered Pluto), meteors, comets, the Milky Way, galaxies, and how it was believed that the solar system was formed (now outdated). But it also tackled the nature of elementary particles, sound, light, temperature, Doppler effect, color, gravity, Einstein's general theory of relativity, and the bases and results of Einstein's special theory.
This is pretty heavy stuff for a child's book, especially one written in 1931.
But I imagine that other books for young people also attempted to cover some of these subjects, although probably not as gracefully and elegantly as did Mr. Reed. But what really impresses me about The Stars for Sam -- as suggested by the quotation above -- is the author's intellectual humility.
Relativity was a subject that was giving adults problems decades later. The nature of the electron and of light is understandable only in terms of quantum theory and mathematics. Reed describes, clearly and at an elementary level, relativity theory. He does not use the term "quantum," but he explains clearly some of the experimental difficulties that quantum theory helps to explain.
Above all, he insists that all knowledge is provisional. We form models of the electron, of space, of time, based on the knowledge that we have. Our understanding of any physical phenomenon is always provisional -- subject to revision by new experimental data. (Of course the theory of evolution is "just a theory," Reed would say, if that were his subject. Everything is "just a theory.")
And no matter how much we learn, the ultimate nature of reality will always escape us, just because of the limitations of our intelligence and because our imagination is tied to our limited perception with five physical senses. We simply do our best to form images of reality that are as close to "true reality" as possible.
In his Preface, Reed observes
When the author went to school he had the impression that his teachers and the libraries together represented almost complete knowledge. He appreciated that there were some things to be discovered, but not many. Now he finds himself trying to impart to the next generation exactly the opposite doctrine. He wants to make clear not only that we are on the verge of making great discoveries as yet unsuspected, but that due to our limitations in the three dimensional world we can probably never really understand the space-time-life world. Our three dimensional minds must ever have distorted ideas.
Pretty impressive for a child's book in 1931. Few of my teachers (or texts) a quarter-century later shared that humility.
The Stars for Sam was worth my twenty bucks. The book probably isn't an appropriate book for a child today -- too many of the facts discussed have been revised by subsequent work in astronomy -- but it's an appropriate reminder to adults of how best to teach science to the young.
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