The usefulness of curiosity

KIM SANG-HYUN
The author is a mathematics professor at the Korea Institute for Advanced Study.

“Then, what’s the use of your research?” A renowned mathematician recently asked me this when he visited. He was pioneering his own field for some time. I asked him about his research. “What’s the use of this field? What intuition does it provide on something that humans are traditionally curious about, such as space or symmetry?” After a week of thorny exchanges, that’s what he asked me.

I felt electrified when he asked that question. Many people’s maxim started from one man’s circuit. They advised that usefulness is not the driving force for scientific development. The nourishment of conception and growth is curiosity. It applies to his research — and mine. The mathematics we created were full of curious questions, and the process of solving them was interesting. That was enough.

American educator Abraham Flexner (1866-1959) also emphasized the role of curiosity in science. The rich Bamberger family wanted to establish a medical school, but Flexner persuaded them to set up the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS), a pure academic research institute in Princeton, New Jersey.

Flexner preached the value of knowledge itself. He explained that theoretical physicist Maxwell’s formula led to the invention of wireless communication and that underqualified medical student Paul Ehrlich’s persistent observation led to microbiology.

Impressed by Flexner’s initiative, scientists like Albert Einstein, John von Neumann and Kurt Gödel joined the new research institute. With those names that make your heart race just by hearing them, the United States became the leading science powerhouse.

Humanity is a purpose itself — and should not be treated as a means. That is a desperate command from a philosopher. If humanity is a means of propaganda or glamorization, artists may fall behind artificial intelligence. There will be no innovation in basic science if researchers are pushed by the standards of commercialization and usefulness.

If art is an expression of inner exploration, science is a product of curiosity about nature. Thanks to this, we have built a breathtakingly beautiful — and brutally powerful — civilization. Flexner famously said, “The real enemy is the man who tries to mold the human spirit so that it will not dare to spread its wings.”