The Intuitive Aspect of Science

The physical sciences and mathematics are often considered dull and unimaginative subjects; the discipline is filled with the rigours of solving complex mathematical equations, the tabulation of voluminous empirical data and the description of natural phenomena in dry technical jargons.

Being someone who has been drafted into the science stream since I was sixteen (Form 4), I consider an education in the sciences as the best thing that ever happened to me. Early on, I realised that there are certain people who have a natural aptitude for mathematic thinking and there are others who are just hopeless when it comes to dealing with symbols and numbers.

The exacting nature of the physical sciences requires a mind that is precise, logical and methodical to excel. But it does not mean that those who opt for the humanities do not possess nor require such abilities. Often the study of the arts and humanities require these faculties to be honed to an even more acute level given its very subjective nature.

Neither does the study of the sciences exclude the need for its students to be intuitive, imaginative or even "artistics". If the domain of science and mathematics is looked upon as nerdy, tedious and boring, it is because the teachers who are teaching these subjects are not approaching it in the correct way.

Often, a topic is introduced without relating it to its historical context or its practical application. Why for instance do we study analytical geometry? What is the actual significance of Newton's Laws of Motion? What do Maxwell's equations really mean, intuitively? Why do we need to spend hours learning how to manipulate algebraic symbols and solve differential equations? Who invented differential calculus?

The study of science can be history, engineering and philosophy rolled in one. It is an intellectual adventure that is unsurpassed, and at its most sublime it gives the student an experience of exhilaration that borders on the spiritual.

Both imagination and logical rigour is required to do well in science. Michael Faraday is an example of a scientist who reasoned in an intuitive manner. His postulation of the presence of electric and magnetic fields from where lines of force called "flux" act, is a triumph of the intuitive imagination.

It was left to the logical genius of James Clark Maxwell to put the mathematical meat behind Faraday's intuitive flux-field model, formulating it in four neat equations--Maxwell's Equations--which every electrical engineering student today know by heart.

Maxwell's equations describe completely the phenomena of electricity and magnetism, and their interrelationships--the Laws of Electromagnetism--without which our our cellular phones, television broadcasts and WiFi PDAs would not have become a possibility.

Without the creative imagination, new scientific theories and models will not arise. And without the logical precision of mathematics, all the engineering applications of science would not have been possible. A good scientist possesses both qualities.