Tue, June 14, 2005
Math bees—10:09 AM
The onebee science corner continues, this time with an article that's (synergistically enough) about bees. Mathematician Barbara Shipman contends that bees can sense quantum fields and that sensitivity is what designs their well known dance patterns. If that sounds crazy, the key to remember here is that the bees don't know it's a quantum field. They just feel it – the way your inner ear allows you to feel balance, or the way bees "see" UV light, because their eyes are sensitive to that part of the spectrum.
What impresses me the most about this is that the discovery results entirely from Shipman's overlapping expertise – she studies quantum math, but just happens to have a long-standing interest in bee dances because her dad worked with bees in her childhood. That always fascinates me about creative and intellectually curious people: they pursue many different interests which may seem unrelated, but every so often the combination of two separate hobbies yields an unexpected discovery. Out of millions of researchers, Barbara Shipman happens to know about the two fields that come together to make the quantum bee connection.
I spent a few minutes on Google and couldn't find any mention of the theory more than a few months after this article was published in late 1997. I don't know if this means she abandoned the theory. Either way, I like the idea of bees as little math genius superheroes. I'd love it if they were able to measure quantum fields without disturbing them (the way scientists can't) and researchers had to use them like canaries in a mine. Think of the publicity for onebee!
AC — Wed, 5/3/06 1:45pm
Another bee article!
Link
"Stephanie" — Wed, 1/31/07 5:52pm
i think that this page is so cool and helpful