The power of inspiration from long calculations

LEE WOO-YOUNG
The author is an HCMC Distinguished Professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.

There are some moments we overlook in great scientific discoveries. Let’s look at three moments. First, what is the longest calculation in the history of mankind? It is Kepler’s Third Law. Johannes Kepler started the calculation in 1599 and found the law after 20 years of work in 1619.

How painful it must have been. On the law published in “Harmonices Mundi,” he wrote, “Let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God Himself has been ready for His contemplator for six thousand years.”

Second, Isaac Newton returned to his hometown of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth when his university in London shut down due to the plague. Through intense contemplation for two years in his hometown, he discovered universal gravitation. The episode of Newton’s apple tree describes the process dramatically. But later, Newton confessed that he had done a lot of long integral calculations in the early days of his time in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth.

Third, how are the prime numbers distributed? Carl Friedrich Gauss, a German mathematician, began thinking about this question as his first mathematical research question when he was about 15. And he found the famous “prime number theorem” by calculating all the prime numbers up to 1 million. How tedious it must have been until he found the astonishing inspiration! Later, Gauss recalled that he ran out of patience during the process.

What these episodes have in common is the beauty of long calculations. Scientific insights often come from long calculations. Inspirations lie quietly in wait amid long calculations. The inspiration cannot be detected by computers. It reveals itself in the abyss of intense yet subtle human feelings.

Our lives often feel like a long calculation. When fierce energy is contained in the repetition of bored routines, the inspiration which rises when the threshold is broken can refresh our lives.