On Wednesday we had a Crossroads event about gravitational waves that really surprised me. To be honest, I barely remembered that scientists had even discovered gravitational waves, but as an aspiring scientist I wanted to go. Being completely tired after a long day of work, I showed up really hoping for a good talk.

I got more than what I was hoping for. Both speakers, Luca Matone and Massimo Roberto, were totally captivating. You could see right away how big their needs were to communicate what gravitational waves were and how astounding this subtle phenomenon was. Honestly, I usually tune out when people start talking about gravity and space-time because typically it’s communicated in such a dry manner that my attention is lost. But this time I wanted to know more about this 4-dimensional space-time in which gravitational waves exist because the speakers were so excited.

I did not even know I wanted to know about them until they started showing grand pictures of space and explaining the fundamentals of black holes, stars, and general relativity. Then I was hooked! I wanted to know more about how these cataclysmic events of colliding black holes occur! This led me to think about my own research. I am a recent graduate currently working as a research technician at a neuroscience laboratory, taking time off before committing to a PhD in neuroscience. I have been fearful of pursuing a PhD lately because funding can be tough to obtain, and pursuing science typically entails a long route of studying five or more years, then a few years doing a postdoc, and then many more years before a tenured professorship. It seems intimidating to me and I often think about forgoing the whole process. Additionally, the work I have been doing in my research has been very monotonous lately which makes me wonder if it is even worth the work at all.


However, this event on gravitational waves reminded me of my need to discover something new. After the talk, Luca said that funding research in gravitational waves was risky. For years, there was no direct physical detection or contact of these waves, but scientists still continued to seek this contact to confirm their previous analyses.

It seemed to me that the need to know if these gravitational waves were real was greater than their doubt! They had to say, "yes" to pursue something new, something mysterious. I, we, don't need to be afraid of great uncertainty because what we can discover can help us see how great life is when it’s not ours to control. There are things in life, in reality, that beg our attention to know what they are and how they relate to us, that we do not have to do anything for them to exist, and they are all there, simply for us to discover.

Until this talk, I had almost forgotten how much pursuing discovery helps me remember the One who gave it all to me and Who just simply asks for a relationship in return. One day I hope to know whether or not I should do my PhD, but today I went back to work totally happy to do my monotonous work.