eBusiness Weekly
Alfred M. Mthimkhulu
On March 27, 2015 I met a dreamer. It was in a luncheon hosted by the Rector of Stellenbosch University for the year’s Doctor of Philosophy graduates.
The dreamer stood on the podium to our undivided attention.
He was a learned man and spoke to be understood.
“All of these things” he said, “require skills, technical skills and those essentially come down to mathematics. What is physics after all — it is just mathematics applied in the real world. I often say if financial mathematics worked it would be called physics.”
The audience burst into laughter. He too. His name, Professor Neil Turok.
He already had a doctorate. He was already a scholar of global repute having worked with the likes of Stephen Hawking. He was here to receive an honorary doctorate for his “excellent contribution as a physicist and cosmologist and his continued efforts as education activist to unlock the world of science for fellow Africans”.
Most of his activism is through his brainchild, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) which he founded in 2003. With presence in several African countries, AIMS offers postgraduate degrees in mathematical sciences.
The degrees are taught by some of the finest intellectuals of our time. This honorary doctorate was thus a fitting tribute to the son of the soil whose parents had been jailed for anti-apartheid activism when he was a toddler.
“Maths is everywhere”, he had said earlier in the talk.
“Most people don’t realise this. What controls electricity? It is people doing modelling and mathematics. What controls your cell phones, your computers, the transport system, health system.” He proceeded to walk us through the history of physics. He talked of the relativity theory and what it had unlocked — nuclear energy, GPS and so on. He talked of quantum physics and what is had unlocked — electronics, lasers and a host of medical equipment.
He shared how several of the foremost revolutionaries in physics were people who had been excluded from studying Science, especially Jews. Such include Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. They walked into the field with a lot to prove to themselves, to science and to society. And oh how well they did it all because entirely new industries emerged from their work.
The Professor then drew his lesson on the history of physics to a close and gravitated towards his vision and the unknown future. He spoke of the empty space, the so-called dark energy which accounts for at least 70 percent of energy in the universe yet little is known of it. He held his audience so well that novices like me were lost in momentary imaginations of what this dark energy thing could do for us given what relativity theory and quantum mechanics had done. At this point, it became clear why he was so optimistic about Africa.
In our times, Africa is very peripheral in the production and use of new scientific knowledge. Africa is seemingly excluded by the world. This frustrates scholars and policy makers alike.
It may even explain the rising interest in decolonisation as a theme of study in higher education, a theme now spanning numerous disciplines in some universities globally. I am cautious on the prospects of the theme in the long run.
In the present, I am drawn to the perspective of the likes of Professor Turok who underscore the importance of excelling in whatever goals we set for ourselves as Africans.
In summing it all up — the history of physics, his work, the unknown future and Africa — he took us back to theoretical physics.
“You need fewer numbers to describe the structure of the whole universe than you do to describe a simple atom. It’s an amazing fact, and I believe a profound clue to the next revolution in physics. We are now on the threshold of such a revolution. Africa has a bright future. I totally believe we will get an African Einstein.” That is the mission of AIMS.
Over the years, I have reflected on his talk and similar others from the likes of the late Professor Phineas Makhurane. In my reflections, the events of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 often come to mind. There was a bloodless coup in England. William of Orange (Holland) and Queen Mary (Scotland) both Protestants took over from the Catholic despot, James II.
In writing of this event, Niall Ferguson observes that “this Glorious Revolution is usually portrayed as a political event . . . but it also had the character of an Anglo-Dutch business merger” wherein William of Orange became England’s Chief Executive leading “to a number of crucial financial institutions that the Dutch had pioneered” being set-up in England. These included the Bank of England in 1694. The imported financial innovations enabled the English government to finance naval expansion, trade expeditions, science and, of course, wars. London became the financial centre of the world and so rose the British Empire.
As the physicist told us in 2015 and as all researchers know, progress is about building on the works of others. He and his peers have built on the likes of Isaac Newton and previous social outcasts like Albert Einstein. The UK harnessed financial innovations from Amsterdam and welcomed enterprising French exiles thus outgrowing peer nations.
It all requires skills as the Professor said. Progress requires technical and analytical skills. Human capital has, after all, been the unrivalled driver of progress but only a few societies have been able to harness it at any given point in time. With due credit to Shakira, “it’s time for Africa” to give it a deliberate bash.
