Q: Light
from the sun
reaches the
Earth - then
what happens?
Does the
light cease to
exist? Does
it turn into
something
else?Tibetan, of course – our translator noted that one pair
was debating why they wear the red robes; others were
debating implications of the science they are learning
(“since my hand is made of atoms, my hand does not
exist” was the translation). It’s incredibly animated
and they look like they’re having a blast.
We asked our translators to help us choose a good
debate topic (not everything is debate-worthy) and
chose to ask the monks to endorse or refute the claim
that everyone ate some of Newton’s apple at lunch
one day. In the ensuing – and quite intense – debate,
the refuters’ main claim was “the past is not on your
plate”. (A physics interpretation of this idea might
be construed as “all carbon-12 atoms are the same
and indistinguishable” or “carbon has no memory”.)
I don’t think of this as a particularly empirical claim
on their part. (The dissenting monks accused this
monk of arguing from Buddhist philosophy and not
scientific philosophy.)IM: Buddhist monks were convinced that objects
naturally come to rest when no forces are acting on them
(and I am not sure we convinced all of them otherwise).
The monks would have fit perfectly into Aristotle’s
Lyceum – or, rather, Aristotle would have felt very much
at home in the monastery!LAE: There’s a commitment in Buddhism to the
idea of impermanence. There’s a commitment
in physics to conservation laws – which, of course,
is a commitment to the idea of permanence. It’s
interesting to think about trying to learn physics while
holding that lens.IM: I learned a lot about teaching physics from Leslie.
My natural reaction would have been to opt for old-
school lecturing, especially when faced with the relativelack of preparation in the audience. Surely this is the
time to teach from the pulpit, rather than waste time
on letting the audience express their ignorance. And yet
spending an hour asking them for what they thought of
as possible forms of energy [shown on the whiteboard
opposite] was clearly a useful strategy in discussing
the domain of physics. I tried to incorporate this when
asking for predictions for the pendulum. Less algebra,
more of a sense of what empirical science is about.LAE: As a teacher I’ve aimed to develop courses in
which students start to ask really great questions.
They don’t just take what you say and spit it back to
you, but really make sense of it and question it. With
undergraduates, this is a heavy lift. With the monks,
it was trivial. They questioned things in deep, physical
ways. It makes me wonder if there’s an aspect of their
training that supports this stance towards science
or if it actually says something damning about our
educational system that stops students from asking
these questions. I feel like we could learn something
about learning from the monks.THE EMORY-TIBET SCIENCEinitiative was conceived
in 2006 through a partnership between His Holiness
the Dalai Lama and Emory University, in Atlanta,
US. Designed to introduce modern science for use
in Buddhist monasteries in India, the curriculum has
been presented as a series of courses in the philosophy
of science, neuroscience, biology and physics to more
than 1500 monks at three monasteries.
Mandel and Elliott taught 25 monks, most in
their mid-20s, a two-week broad-survey course
covering topics ranging from Newton’s laws to
energy to astronomy, introducing key themes that
will be taught in greater depth in subsequent courses.Smiles all round: The
monks with translators
and teachers at the
completion of the course.ILYA MANDEL; LESLIE ATKINS ELLIOTT
PHYSICS