‘The infinite and the infinitesimal’
Thomas T. Astrene, Publisher | TLT Inside TLT January 2009
Science seemingly has no limits when it comes to solving the world’s most critical problems.
In the 1950s and ’60s, Hollywood promoted the message that science often has strange, unexpected consequences.
When I realized this issue of TLT addressed lubrication challenges occurring in the vastness of space and at the nano scale. The phrase popped into my head—the infinite and the infinitesimal. I’d like to take credit for this alliterative bit of word crafting, but after a few moments I realized I was recalling a bit of dialogue from one of my favorite science-fiction movies, 1957’s “The Incredible Shrinking Man.”
Today we live in a world where incredible advances in science and technology are everyday occurrences and nothing to be frightened of. But back in the late ’50s and early ’60s, when I grew up (and spent an inordinate amount of time watching Grade B science fiction movies), the popular view of science was a bit different.
With the Nuclear Age well underway and the Space Age in its infancy, there was a sense that, in ways mere mortals could never understand, scientists held the answer to all the world’s problems. But back then science also was viewed with a sense of fear and dread, a force perhaps too powerful to be contained, especially when something goes wrong. And Hollywood loved promoting the message that, ultimately, something always goes wrong.
“The Incredible Shrinking Man” was a movie that tapped into that angst. Talk about life at the nano scale! In TISM our hero is accidentally exposed to a mysterious radioactive cloud that induces death through the title effect. TISM also was a true Hollywood oddity for its time. Richard Matheson, who wrote the novel and the screenplay, uses science as the backdrop to ask some uncharacteristically existential questions.
As our hero diminishes—slowly at first and then exponentially—he asks himself what it means to be human. In the final moments of his life, before he literally shrinks to nothingness, we hear his thoughts in voiceover.
“I was continuing to shrink,” he says, “to become...what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world?
“So close—the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet like the closing of a gigantic circle…and I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance.
“All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist!”
Pretty heady stuff, especially to an impressionable 10-year-old. And I often reflect on that fact that 40 years ago I was a child who could only watch movies about scientists on TV. Now I’m the publisher of an international magazine that helps advance the work of real-life scientists, people who are actually working to create new energy sources, solve medical problems, protect the environment and make the world a better place.
Playing even a small role in the work of STLE members is a privilege. I guess it just goes to show that, as the incredible shrinking man might say, in Man’s ongoing search for knowledge there’s a place for everyone.
Happy reading,
Tom
tastrene@stle.org
