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How can a habit of curiosity, courage, and careful observation power an eternal adventure of unravelling the magic and mystery in the mundane worlds in and around us - forever uncertain, forever fruitful?
There is more remarkable science to be found in an average day of any human than in any lab! It is this bewildering complexity and richness that is grist for our mill. How can one unravel this intricate tapestry and yet not be left with just the bedraggled threads ? How can one synthesize our understanding of the humdrum without getting swamped by detail, and yet not ignore it completely either? And how can we use this to develop a culture of curiosity? This is the quest that we will collectively embark on, much like a walk in the garden - pausing to look at the sky and the land, clouds and oceans, leaves and flowers, bugs and blue whales, and more. And use simple observations and abstractions, one at a time, to learn to cultivate a life of the mind - where everything can be worth studying and thinking about – without artificial hierarchies of importance or urgency.
In the Mahabharata, Vyasa provides an intimation of divinity through Yashoda who opens a willful Krishna’s mouth to extract mud, only to be greeted by a vision of the universe! In Auguries of Innocence, Blake asks us to “see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” In Odas elementales, Neruda invites us to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Complementing mythology, poetry and prose, we will use science to study the humdrum, and construct mathematical poems of the pedestrian!