Normally, when I see a caption on a facebook link which says “this will amaze you!,” turns out it doesn’t. This, however, amazed me. It seems that not all tears are the same. Somebody finally got around to putting them under a microscope and discovered that tears of laughter are not the same as tears of pain, tears of grief are not the same as tears from onions, and so on.
What does it mean?
I am amazed partly because it is so cool. This is art meeting science. This is the universe exposing itself to be a thing of beauty, this is science discovering that things are, after all, exactly as they should be.
One aspect of this that knocks me back is that this is something out of the blue. Not only didn’t I know this, I didn’t even know that I didn’t know this. The thought had never occurred to me. Apparently, not to anybody else, either.
I don’t know how this will influence our lives. This knowledge does not create energy, or make space travel easier. It will not cure cancer, or reverse global warming. But, wow.
The most amazing thing about this, to me, is how it was found. Rose-Lynn Fisher, the discoverer of this fun phenomenon, is not a scientist at all. She is a photographer, who specializes in taking pictures of really small stuff, like bees. We’ve reached that point.
We have cameras in outer space, and microscopes which can see things in a way no mortal can. We have instant communication between all of the minds of the world. We do a quick survey and we can find out that Aries and Sagittarians are the most likely to commit murder. You can go to YouTube and watch streaming video of the Earth from Space. Scientists are discovering new exoplanets every day, and millions of private computers around the world are hooked up to SETI, so it might well be a total amateur who first makes contact with aliens.
The research is happening so fast it is starting to write itself, and it is going in directions we never expected.
(Actually, a quick glance at Wikipedia lets me know the Rose-Lynn Fisher is not the discoverer of this phenomenon, which scientists have understood for awhile. So, my bad for overeager journalism. But, it’s the first I’ve heard about it and she’s got the coolest pictures.)
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