DARE I UNWEAVE THE RAINBOW?

Sipping my brewed coffee and enthralled by the distant wonder of the rainbow one does realise that the world is always best savoured by such indulgence of nature's beauty. As I remarked to my wife that the rainbow vibrant arrays of colours is due to the dispersion of light by the prisms effect of the water droplets I got an instant rebuke. I should not demean the beauty and poetry that the rainbow evoke in us by such mundane observation. There goes the lifelong dilemma of any keen observer of science. They have always been accused of trying to destroy the beauty of life by attempting to explain everything into reducible components of logic and reason.Why can't the rainbow be savoured in its true majestic form and with luck we can find a pot of gold at its end.

The recent 'kerfuffle' of some students achieving 15 or 17 As and being criticised for such excess really puzzled me. Why can't we just celebrate their achievents as just an acknowledgement of God given talents to some people in their ability to have strong reasoning power and have a gift for photographic memory just as we acknowledge Mawi for his singing talents(even if it is a matter of opinion ). My wife possibly is right for reprimanding me for trying to unweave the rainbow as just a mere dispersion of light; but I do believe looking at the world with a scientific, rationale and logical approach has its valued place in our endeavours to make sense of our life. Philosophy admittedly may be an essential meta view that we need in deciphering life's intricacies but I do think that science in all its faults of obsession for details can provide us a realistic view of the world. Why is the colour of leaves green? I like green because it symbolise nature's beauty but will it make us demean again nature's beauty by our understanding of the photosynthesis process and chloropyll as the basic facets of the green leaves? I don't think so.

I remembered during my days as an engineering student ;given an assignment to size a calaytic reactor; figure crunching approach as govern by the principle of empiricsm; equations are formulated; data gathered and basic principles of heat,mass transfers and a dose of thermodynanism need to be understood in order to size the hypothetical reactor.As I now sipped my second cup of brewed coffee one wonders what use were all those knowledge .As a friend remarked for you to get on in this world you just have to be an effective social animal embraced with all the necessary armoury of golfing; karaoke singing skills and the 'techno-who' factor.While not challenging the importance of emotional intelligence and having good social skills I still believe science can still be useful in our day to day manouevres besides just being utilised in our chosen technical professions.As I now realise sizing the reactor is not just trying to calculate Antoine's constants but it is a study and discipline of prediction. It lays out the path through human knowledge of science and mathematics a predictive model with sound factual basis and to rationalise a particular outcome. In this case the correct or optimal size of the reactor .So I am sure science can assist us in our day to day grappling with issues and problems as we try to predict a favourable outcome from all the numerous issues that we face. There's a limit though; you obviously cannot and should not be gauging your way in life selecting your partner utilising a computer model based on some derived empirical formulae.

Having argued all these;i still though will not introduce myself as a man of science in any dinner conversation ;it is more glamorous to be known as a business man or corporate figure for this will ensure you not to be mistaken to be another Forrest Gump.Give me the rainbow 's beauty anytime uh.