I’ve talked before about why I run, hike, and bike, but I felt like taking a moment to talk about why I teach. No, it’s not only for the summers off, during which I can go on long hiking/biking trips (though that certainly helps).

When I was a kid, at some point I realized that everything ever written - every novel, every textbook, every poem and sonnet, every newspaper article, every stage play, every thesis, every historical document, every dictionary and encyclopedia, everything - was merely a complex rearrangement of only 26 characters.

The catalog created with these 26 items is astonishing. Consider all the knowledge, stories, philosophies, religions, instructions, information, and everything stored by using only 26 possible values. And some languages have less! Hawaiian, for example, has only 13 characters, exactly half as many as English, and there’s no reason to doubt every thought, datum, and tale written in English could be just as accurately recorded in Hawaiian.

Then I learned about DNA, which contains only four basic components, usually labeled A, T, C, and G. A can only pair with T, and C with G, though the pairings can go in either order (A-T or T-A). That gives only four possible combinations, and through these four, we have everything necessary to code every living thing on planet Earth, from the largest and most complex animals, every insect, every tree, every blade of grass, every fungus, every moss, all the way down to the simplest single-cell bacterium. This is enough to not only make each species unique, but it's enough to make almost every individual within each species unique.

But it gets better!

Everything in the entire freakin’ universe is made up of only three things: protons, neutrons, and electrons. That’s it. Everything known to mankind, as well as everything unknown, is only a complex structure made out of the same three things. We’re made of the same things as plants, dirt, rocks, air, water, and the stars. We are made of the same material as the rest of the universe.

Worth noting: None of the atoms in your body are alive, but all of them are part of something that’s alive.

Of the hundred-quinvigintillion fundamental particles in the universe, we are, as far as we know, the smartest ones. If the universe were a living thing, we would be the brain. We are the universe's means to understand itself.

As the smartest particles in the known universe, it’s our most sacred duty to learn as much as possible, because we’re the only ones who can do it. And once we learn it, we need to write it down so future generations can begin where we left off and progress our collective intelligence even further.

 

A brief detour: Humans are some of the only animals which store more information in their brain than they do in their DNA, but more uniquely, humans are the only animals which can store information outside of their bodies. For most of human history, this has been in the form of written language, but we now have other modern means of storing data on videocassettes, records, CDs, DVDs, and recently, several digital formats. The ability to externally preserve information has been paramount to our advancement as a species, because before the invention of written language, when you died, everything you learned died with you.

And can we take a moment to appreciate what a miracle written language is? You hold a strip of a dead tree, look at some lines drawn on it, and by some form of magic, you suddenly know something you never knew before. You can see places you’ve never been, hear someone’s voice in your head, possibly the voice of a person who’s been dead for thousands of years. Incredible.

 

If you asked anyone, “What happened in 1492?” almost everyone would respond, “Columbus found the new world.” And that’s correct; he did. But that’s not the only thing that happened in 1492:

• England and France signed a peace treaty.
• The Borgia family took over the Papacy.
• The richest man in the world died.

If there had been newspapers in 1492, those would’ve been the headlines, rather than “Italian guy sails Spanish ship to nowhere.”

It’s important to take a step back and think about what truly matters. In 100 years, no one will care who won a U.S. presidential election, or which faction held control of what Middle Eastern land, or anything else like that. What will matter to future generations is what we did to make their currently-unimaginable lives possible.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that there’ll never be a Landauer Theorem. I’ll never be a part of the advancement of human progress.

…or will I??

Maybe I can’t make a breakthrough discovery that changes the course of humanity, but I can still do my part to make the world a slightly smarter place. Maybe one of my students will do something which changes the world, and maybe none of them will. And even if one of them does, I could never take partial credit for it.

More than anything though, I want to teach my students how to use the information they're given, as well as their head, to solve any problem in front of them. And ideally, I ignite their senses of wonder and help young minds see the world through math-and-physics-colored lenses.

But no matter what, a smarter world is better than a not-as-smart one. It's a borderline-religious calling to be a small part of mankind’s most important task: Learning.

If we crave a purpose, let us find ourselves a worthy goal.

Name:
I am a carbon-based life form.