The Story of a Lonely Orca

After 53 years in captivity, she has a chance at a better life. Plus: behind the scenes with physicist Alan Lightman; to supercharge learning, look to play; and more. [View in browser]( | [Become a member]( EDITORS’ CHOICE April 9, 2023   Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here](. Good Morning! Here’s some of the latest and most popular stories from Nautilus—and this week’s Behind the Scenes with physicist [Alan Lightman](, of The Transcendent Brain, below [READ NAUTILUS](   [ZOOLOGY]( [The Story of a Lonely Orca]( After 53 years in captivity, she has a chance at a better life. BY CATHERINE DENARDO She was once a wild animal, a predator; part of a family, a pod, a clan. She was magnificent. [Continue reading →]( Experience the endless possibilities and deep human connections that science offers [SUBSCRIBE TODAY](   Popular This Week [PSYCHOLOGY]( [To Supercharge Learning, Look to Play]( Play and art engage all of our senses and enhance attention. BY SUSAN MAGSAMEN & IVY ROSS [Continue reading →]( [PHYSICS]( [How Our Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Realities]( Richard Feynman’s path integral is both a powerful prediction machine and a philosophy about how the world is. But physicists are still struggling to figure out how to use it, and what it means. BY CHARLIE WOOD [Continue reading →]( [HEALTH]( [Exercise Is Great for Our Brains, Too, Right?]( One question for Luis Ciria, a neuroscientist at the University of Granada. BY BRIAN GALLAGHER [Continue reading →]( [PSYCHOLOGY]( [Why Poverty Is Like a Disease]( Emerging science is putting the lie to American meritocracy. BY CHRISTIAN H. COOPER [Continue reading →](   [“Broad and open curiosity and knowledge synthesis help us evolve as a species.”]( Nautilus reader Mariya Py ([@pyinthesky]() reacts to Alan Lightman’s story, [“The Spiritual Materialist.”](   [BEHIND THE SCENES]( [Alan Lightman Takes Us Behind “The Spiritual Materialist”]( When he was a little kid, growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, Alan Lightman realized he was a materialist. Not in the sense of loving “cars and nice clothes,” the acclaimed physicist and author [wrote recently in Nautilus](, “but in the literal sense of the word: the belief that everything is made out of atoms and molecules, and nothing more.” Reading a science magazine one day, he came across a curious fact, that the time for a pendulum to complete a swing back and forth, called a period, is proportional to the square root of the length of the pendulum. If you quadruple the length of the pendulum, the period doubles. The young Lightman had the gumption to test it out for himself, making pendulums short and long using a fishing weight as a bob at the end of a string. Timing their periods with a stopwatch, he found, “lo and behold, that the law was true.” He could predict the periods of pendulums before he built them. “That led me to the view that the world is an orderly place—logical, quantitative,” he said. “There are no ethereal or supernatural forces governing the behavior of things.” Yet [Lightman](, a professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT, embraces spirituality. By that he means, “feeling part of something larger than yourself, or a connection to nature and to the stars, the appreciation of beauty, the experience of wonder and awe,” he said. [In our recent conversation]( we discussed, among other things, what he calls the “creative transcendent.” It’s an aspect of spirituality that he’s experienced across his scientific and literary career. He’s written eight novels, including Einstein’s Dreams, an international bestseller that’s been translated into 30 languages and adapted into plays and musicals. And along with a number of collections of essays and fables, he’s also penned around a dozen non-fiction books, which include In Praise of Wasting Time and, most recently, The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science. I asked Lightman to describe a creatively transcendent moment from his life. He was writing a novel, on his third draft or so, and had a character that seemed hollow, “just would not come to life,” he said. “I just didn’t understand her. She didn’t seem real to me. Her dialogue didn’t seem right. Then when I was in the shower, I suddenly heard her say something. It was a line that was so true. It brought her to life. It made me understand her. I don’t know where that line came from. I’m sure it was somewhere in my subconscious mind. From then on, I was able to rewrite her, and it made the whole novel.” Lightman also explained why he’s fond of the 18th-century philosopher and theologian Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn had a saying Lightman loves, that God commits as few miracles as possible. Mendelssohn’s “a person who wants to believe in the scientific worldview,” Lightman said, “wants to believe that nature is orderly and obeys rules and laws, but also is very spiritual, and believes in the soul and an afterlife.” [Watch here.]( —Brian Gallagher, associate editor   [“Orcas travel together. Hunt together. Share food. Wait for each other. Grieve for each other.”]( [Catherine DeNardo writes movingly about Tokitae, a young orca snatched from her family and made to perform.](   More in Zoology [Animal Personalities Can Trip Up Science, But There’s a Solution]( Individual behavior patterns may skew studies. A “STRANGE” new approach could help. BY ELIZABETH PRESTON [Continue reading →]( [How Snails Cross Vast Oceans]( The intrepid travelers are widely dispersed despite their sedentary lifestyle. BY THOM VAN DOOREN [Continue reading →](   P.S. On this day in 1626, the 17th-century natural philosopher Francis Bacon, a leading figure in the Scientific Revolution, died. Grant Wilson wrote that scientists like Bacon succeeded in “popularizing their conceptions of Earth as a machine or giant clock that was possible to control and exploit as long as we pulled the right levers.” It hasn’t worked out so well—[but cultural transformation is possible.](   Today’s newsletter was written by Brian Gallagher   BECOME A SUBSCRIBER [Plants Are Perceptive]( Issue 48 of [Nautilus]( features “[What Plants Are Saying About Us](.” Amanda Gefter discovers that her houseplants are endowed with feelings and memories, shifting her thoughts on human perception. Also: We are all programmed to die; the void in the universe is alive; and more. 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