Growing up, when other kids said they wanted to be a fireman or a policeman, I wanted to be a scientist.
Science is cool. But it is just a tool to truth, not truth itself. Some people forget that. They don’t realize that if you start from an incorrect premise, science may not help you.
In grade school, I’d heard that oxygen was key to life. Oxygen shows up in nature as two atoms bound together, or O2.
But I’d also heard about a different form of oxygen, called ozone. You might smell it after a lightning storm, or in a room full of sparking electrical machinery. Ozone is three oxygen atoms, or O3.
Well, I surmised: If O2 is good for life, then O3 must be even better for life. How much better? Well, do the math. Compare the number 3 to the number 2. Ozone had to be half again more life-giving than plain old oxygen!
So I decided to build an Ozone Machine. I knew the science: electrical sparks can cause standard O2 oxygen to rearrange into O3 ozone. I combined an old broken sewing machine motor, a power cable, a funnel and a hose. I plugged in my Ozone Machine, saw the sparks begin, held the funnel to my face, took a deep whiff —
— for exactly one second, before I flung the makeshift mask aside and commenced a violent coughing fit!
Turns out that ozone, though indeed a form of oxygen, is not good for you. My premise was wrong. More atoms of oxygen do not result in better oxygen. More is not automatically better; more may simply result in different. And different may not be good at all.
The best scientists in history have always been the humble ones. Science doesn’t make anyone infallible. Rather, it often reveals how little we yet know about the way reality works.
I can’t smell as well as I used to — wonder why? — but I still love the scent of ozone on a stormy day. Mmmm.