Mohsin Jahan Qazi, Doctoral Student, University of Amsterdam, Netherland

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   We see plenty of fascinating, and at the same time, complex things in our surroundings every day. Our curiosity often triggers us to think about how these complex things work. Everyone has his own way of explaining - some might perceive it simply as magic but minds that are more rational want to dig down further. Over the past centuries, this consistent approach of questioning and trying to find out the real answers by these kinds of brains has led humanity to discover and accumulate a huge body of knowledge about nature and ourselves. Although many of the nature's secrets still remain unexplored, we have already unraveled a great degree of the machinations of nature. One basic underlying principle throughout this process of scientific investigations has been to explain something complex in the simplest possible way. Physics Nobel Laureate Jean Perrin puts it as, the key to scientific advance is to be able to explain the complex visible by something simple invisible.
   In this respect, the discovery of the atom can be regarded as the one of the most revolutionary concepts, which inded speeded the progress of modern physics and chemistry. John Dalton attempted to understand the properties of the complex matter by trying to understand the properties of it smallest building block, which he called the ‘Atom’, which was invisible but simpler to understand. Building up on that, we dug further deep and started knowing that atom is actually not the smallest particle. The next step was knowing that there are even smaller particles like electrons, protons and neutrons. After this, it came to be known that even protons and neutrons are themselves made of smaller particles called ‘Quarks’ and now string theory proposes that these quarks are further composed of strings vibrating at different frequencies. The different frequencies of vibrations of the strings gives different properties to the particles, which eventually end up shaping up the properties of the microscopic world.
   Going back to the idea of explaining the complex things from the properties of its simpler building blocks, we would see if that is enough for us to understand the various phenomena in nature. It is intuitive to think that the properties of complex matter is the result of accumulation of the properties of its smaller building blocks, but would it explain the properties of the matter and the working of the systems as a whole? Turns out, the answer is ‘no’. Let's take a very simple example - we know that hydrogen gas has a property that it burns in air and oxygen supports burning. So, what properties would be expected from the compound made of these two elements? Obviously, something which burns explosively. However, in reality, we know that the product of hydrogen and oxygen is water, which neither burns nor supports burning, and in fact inhibits it. So what is the third term, which comes into play other than the properties of the constituent components of matter? Looking at the example of water, it becomes obvious that the interaction between the constituent particles is as important as the components itself.
   Therefore, the hierarchy of the physical world can be summarized as: nature and interaction of subatomic particles gives rise to emergence of properties in atoms, the nature and interaction of these atoms leads to emergence of new properties in molecules and the interaction of molecules leads to emergence of newer properties and so on. At each step, we see the emergence of new properties. This accumulation of emergent properties at some point, up in the hierarchy, leads to the emergence of all the complex processes around us, including the most spectacular of all of them, which is ‘life’. The concept of emergence can be extended beyond the individual. For example, interaction of living beings between themselves and the surrounding environment gives rise to communities and ecosystems respectively. In case of humans, where the interactions between each other are more sophisticated, we see the emergence of complex social structures and eventually the global set up. But in the natural world, we see many complex intelligent systems forming by much less advanced organisms than human beings. One of the greatest examples is the colony of ants. If we look at the single ant, it is quite incapable of doing many things on its own, but by coordinating with other ants and by interacting with them, it constitutes a very intelligent colony which is able to perform extraordinary tasks. The same goes for honeybee and even bacterial colonies. These examples signify not only how the nature is able to exhibit spectacular properties, but also how important it is to have the constituents interacting in the right order to ensure the sustenance of its systems.
   The main driving force for exploring and understanding the world around us has been the desire to be able to control it in a way that is favorable to us. This quest and systematic investigation of nature has already enabled humans to control it to a significant extent but at the same time, we have done many things which are not sustainable for a long run. Therefore, the need is to understand the interactions of the complex systems of nature in a better way and tweak them only to the extent that the system does not lose its balance and ends up being unsuitable for our own survival. Every day, we create tonnes of non-biodegradable wastes, which end up into the natural systems thereby affecting its balance. At the same time, other uncontrolled human activities has also lead to global rise of temperatures, which is posing a huge challenge to the balance of the ecosystems. Therefore, along with teaching science to our younger generations, we also need to teach them to use it responsibly and take proper care of the planet so that it does not become too harsh to support our existence.

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