Vole science
I wanted to share this snippet from Sebastian Faulkes’ Engleby, a novel set in the Cambridge of the 1970s.
Heisenberg and Bohr and Einstein strike me as being like gifted retriever dogs. Off they go, not just for an afternoon, but for ten years; they come back exhausted and triumphant and drop at your feet … A vole. It’s a remarkable thing in its way, a vole – intricate, beautiful really, marvellous. But does it … Does it help? Does it move the matter on?
When you ask a question that you’d actually like to know the answer to – what was there before the Big Bang, for instance, or what lies beyond the expanding universe, why does life have this inbuilt absurdity, this non sequitur of death – they say that your question can’t be answered, because the terms in which you’ve put it are logically unsound. What you must do, you see, is ask vole questions. Vole is – as we have agreed – the answer; so it follows that your questions must therefore all be vole-related.
Powerful stuff, and I suspect many of the people who ask questions after my cosmology talks go away feeling short changed by their helping of vole. I suppose I can only say that we try as hard as possible to get what we can from the Universe; and if it only gives us voles then, to mix metaphors horribly, we have no choice but to make vole-ade and ask voley questions.
on May 11th, 2008 at 9:41 am
And patience is a virtue. What fun would life be if all the correct answers were put in front of us, like food in a restaurant by a hacked off and underpaid waitress? Has anyone reading this ever read “Rebel on a Rock” by Nina Bawden? A girl is shocked. “But Albert, I thought you knew everything!” “No! Imagine how boring it would be, to know everything. Time to die, then!”
Besides, if somebody found out the answer, someone else would only dispute it!
Excuse that piece of silliness, but if people are reacting that way, that makes something a physicist said to me a year ago at Sussex University. I explained that I wasn’t doing physics because I hadn’t been any good at maths in school, and hadn’t been allowed to do A level – I’d been encouraged to give up anything maths/science related as soon as I was permitted to by law, and stick to arts subjects. There is an urge to give up immediately if all the answers don’t come as if by intuition. This bloke reckoned it was because people are so used to being spoon-fed by television, and because that was what helped schools do well in the League tables.
Neither the Universe nor scientists owe anybody “all the answers”, and if people feel short-changed, they should grow up and realise that what the answers might be must be even more complex and fascinating than can be explained at the moment. Isn’t that more interesting than knowing everything now?
on May 11th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Which vole? Arvicola? Lagurus? Microtus? Be specific DAMMIT! : )
on May 11th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
On the subject of Vole Science. I think I wrote a Biodiversity Action Plan for the water vole about two and a half years ago (perhaps I’m wrong, but it doesn’t seem to have ever been published, rather like the other hundred or so I wrote – all voluntarily!). One thing I learnt was that the British vole is fairly unique in that it is adapted for water, and continental voles are adapted for life on land, in fields and so on. There has also been a 99% decline in the abundancy of British water voles, and they are worryingly endangered. This is largely due to the introduction of mink. Water voles hide by kicking up a lot of mud in the water around them, but mink – unlike most predators – find them anyway.
So, yes, voles are interesting too, aren’t they?
Or are we just making fountains out of vole hills here? 
on May 11th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
The best protection for Watervoles are Otters. Otters particularly dog otters can’t stand Mink in their territory and kill them.
on May 14th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Nice blog Chris. Found it through your wiki page.Theres very little more satisfying than someone who updates their blog often so keep it up!
Sky at Night is amazing as usual, so fascinating and accessible for the casual viewer, as well as containing something for the academics.
‘Bang’ looks like a good read too.
PS. Also I saw you in Oxford circus a few months ago, but you were walking in the opposite direction. I should have said hi, or would you resent a strangre stopping you in the street?
on May 14th, 2008 at 8:58 am
fountains out of vole hills is sheer genius. And Nick, please do say hi – it’s nice to know someone is watching.
Chris