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A Physicist thinks About Biology

Writer's picture: Mishkat BhattacharyaMishkat Bhattacharya

When I was young I had problems with biology. It started with the fact that my memory was not very capacious. As a result, I was not good at memorizing things. I had sort of a meltdown around the tenth grade, when I found it almost physically difficult to memorize endless names of cells, organs, components of the nervous system, etc.


It was a relief when I could drop biology in the eleventh grade and focus on physics, chemistry, mathematics and engineering drawing. These subjects did not seem to require memorization; one could start from a few laws and derive the required results. Relatively more memory might be required for chemistry, but I found the subject manageable, and in fact quite fascinating.


While in graduate school for physics, and having to deal, as a young adult, with the quirks of human behavior at both personal as well as professional levels, I became interested in psychology, anthropology, sociology, etc. These subjects, however interesting, were quite complex in themselves. Following some natural threads in my reading, I found myself getting fascinated more by animal behavior.


It took me a bit of time before I realized that what I was implementing was a classic physics move - confronted by a complex system, I was trying to to find a simpler system that showed some of the same phenomena. Basically I was studying animal behavior as it seemed to be a more tractable subject than human behavior (but related).


Over time, I have made, somewhat randomly, forays that turned out to be interesting, into the animal kingdom. Below I share some of these:


i) I was fascinated by the behavior of horses.


An amazing manifestation of equine jealousy, which I read about in Laura Hillenbrand's outstanding book Seabiscuit (a famous horse in American derby history; the movie based on the book was nominated for an Oscar): horses often train in pairs and round off the day with a practice race - the one which loses often refuses to eat dinner that day (!).


Another manifestation of jealousy/competitiveness: Seabiscuit would often come from behind in races, pull level with the leader, look him/her in the eye, and then pull ahead. Whoa!


Bonus observation: When small groups of horses travel in the wild, they walk in a line with a set hierarchy: the alpha male comes in last. The first in line is his lead mare and then her children, then the other mares and their children. This should not be taken to mean that female horses are weaker than male horses. Male and female horses are (mostly) raced together and females often win.


ii) I ran into the writings of Frans de Waal and was immediately sucked into the similarities between ape and human behavior. Politics, emotional blackmail, violence, intrigue, sex, friendship, the battle for resources - they are all there in the chimpanzee kingdom!


Also check out this amazing experiment with Capuchin monkeys (which are not apes), who display moral outrage in ways we are accustomed to think of as perhaps exclusively human.


iii) I was bitten by a dog when I was very young, about 6 years old. The bite and the following injections into my stomach, to prevent rabies, gave me a fear of dogs for a long time. I would instinctively shrink even if I saw one coming towards me on a leash.


About 15 years ago, I was asked to dogsit for some friends whom I could not refuse. I ended up with 4 dogs over a long weekend and loved it. Partly responsible for this transition was a dignified, handsome, and affectionate black labrador by the name of Othello.


I could see the dogs were very sensitive to my state of mind. If I came into the house in a good mood, they would put their paws on my chest. if I came in with a bad temper, one sniff and they would find the farthest corner away from me. In turn, they had feelings of their own. One of them even threw a tantrum on me, shaking with rage, when I did not pet her after her meal! Needless to say, I pacified her rightaway.


A few years ago, I happened to encounter the incredible videos of Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer, on YouTube. I became addicted to viewing his demonstrations and explanations of dog psychology. To me, they represented vital knowledge I was missing for years. Now I try to use Cesar's principles every chance I get and connect to dogs much better. Cesar's material is also, to me, a working example of how empirical knowledge can be used to build a phenomonenological model and explain a complex system - a paradigm of physics (probably of science).


Previously, I used to make the joke that I am only interested in Nature at the level of atoms, but thanks to our animal relatives I am now hooked on to larger organisms.





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