Epilogue (16th of June 2012)

From a terrace of recently renewed hotel one could clearly witness the advance of the city walls renovation. It was already a sunset, but Dubrovnik spitefully shone even stronger than before the earthquake. A pretty skillful group of scientists-musicians was playing some old-fashioned, probably Brazilian melodies. The drummer was projecting colors and three-dimensional shapes from the portable holo-projector mounted on his head. They were changing in accordance with the rhythm he gave. Very effective. From her modest treasure-chest of experience, a tall female PhD student was pulling surprisingly credible melancholy while singing sad songs of love, loss, ending.

About fifty scientists were meandering around tall, nicely decorated tables with food and some red wine. They were talking to each other:

„Did you perhaps read my last month's Nature paper?“
„Ah... Of course I know him. Well, we have a project and eleven shared postdocs.“
„This discovery was made in my laboratory, in spite of the fact that it is regularly attributed to him. We were the first to publish a detailed study of the effect more than two years ago.“
„You see, these investigations are terribly demanding with respect to computer power. Nobody in the world today can do it but us. The calculation of correlations that one must perform is astronomical. When you ask funds for such an endeavor, you should take into account that the processing of only one such structure takes about five postdoc-years.“,

and other things along these lines. Totally irrelevant except in some uninteresting sociological context, at least the professor thought so. Still, he promised to Nguyens that he will present their joint work on the conference organized to celebrate the hundred years since Caspar-Klug classification of viruses: „1962-2062. Hundred years of Caspar-Klug classification of viruses: quasiequivalence and deviations from quasiequivalence“. Professor's lecture „Catalytically induced octahedral symmetry in unstable ssRNA viruses: Jim Nguyen, Joe Nguyen and Paul Glaser“ was planned in the program of the conference for tomorrow. After that he intended to escape immediately. Regardless of sea, Dubrovnik and Nguyens. But now he has to be patient for a little bit longer. He owes it to the twins. And the twins were after some typical position in science. Something normal if possible. And in two copies. Orbital stations and „model brains“ excluded. Something usual, pharmaceutical research or something related to structure and dynamics of proteins. Something ensuring regular salary and enough time to paint together.

Professor had tough time getting around any conference, not to speak of this one, crowded with excellent scientists with too long publication lists about matters which were, according to editors, referees, prize juries and all possible agencies for financing research, immeasurably important. There could not be any doubt about it.

In such a respectable surrounding, professor’s only company were young biophysicist from Finland, post-doctoral student from Slovenia, and one Russian, Sergei, who worked on a poorly known university in France. Sergei's research history was very colorful because he started his career following the tradition of the mathematically rigorous Landau school of condensed matter physics and later, luckily for him on time, switched to research with biological context which could sell to a degree and which enabled him somewhat safe position. Still, in his approach to biological problems he retained some of the mathematical formalism and strictness so most of biologists and medical scientists could not follow him at all. Neither they wanted to.

As the evening progressed, the hotel terrace was emptying. A keen band of scientists-musicians packed their instruments about an hour ago. Standing around the table, the professor and his company were looking towards Dubrovnik which was becoming more and more shiny. The candle was coming to its end. All of them were comfortably calmed and already sleepy except for a young postdoctoral student with large glasses. She didn't like it at all. Not the night, lights and Dubrovnik, but professor's views. Too much of poisonous skepticism and nihilism. Very atypical for the scientific community. Such views were in a certain sense arrogant, although entirely differently when compared to arrogance shown by boasting stars of the conference, but still ... arrogant. Boasting with their immovable absurdity. She had to ask again:

- But ... Regardless of it all, regardless of the fact that our science does not describe the world as it is, but only our knowledge about it, regardless of the influence of the observer and subjective elements brought in to the description of nature by relativity and quantum mechanics. Regardless of all of that, some of which I can even agree with ... You still, undoubtedly, believe that there is something which we could call the „objective“ reality, that there are some laws that the universe is based upon. Perhaps these laws do not have much in common with our perception of them, but they certainly exist? You must believe in this, because, otherwise ... How would you do science at all?

Professor did not answer immediately because he didn't know what to answer, and it was such a sin to move his eyes away from the sight of Dubrovnik at night. He didn't know what was it that still held him in science. Perhaps the fact that he didn't appreciate anything more than science, and perhaps it was only the feeling that he was too old to do anything else.

- I don't know. I work in science as a storyteller. I tell stories.

Sergei broke into laughter and his disorderly red mustaches were covering and uncovering his lower lip as his whole body was shaking repeating the spasmic moves similar to those typical for myoclonic epileptic seizure.

- Wait a minute ... You cannot withdraw that easily. If a tree fell down in the forest and nobody was there to see it or hear it... You most certainly agree that it fell down and in addition produced some sound? Irrespective of the fact that it wasn't registered by anyone and it's not part of human experience? It fell for reasons which have nothing to do with humans. You most certainly agree with that?

- Eh... Berkeley ... I neither agree nor I disagree. If the tree fell after all and produced some sound in addition, it has nothing to do with us. For us, it is completely irrelevant.

Antonio Šiber, 2008, last chapter of the "Problem of the observer".

<< Cluster modes

Two angels in Heaven >>

Last updated on 16th of June 2012.