Adam Kucharski

Another explanation is that the angle of the wing pushes air downwards, creating an equal and opposite upwards force.

But this doesn't explain why, as the angle gets slightly steeper, planes can suddenly stall.

The point is, aerodynamics is complex.

It's difficult to understand, let alone explain in a simple, intuitive way.

And yet, we trust it.

And the same is true of so many other useful technologies in our lives.

The idea of heart defibrillation has been around since 1899.

But researchers are still working to untangle the biology and physics that means an electric shock can reset a heart.

Then there's general anesthesia.

We know what combination of drugs will make a patient unconscious, but it's still not entirely clear exactly why they do.

And yet, you'd probably still get the operation, just like you'd still take that flight.

For a long time,

This lack of explanation didn't really bother me.

Throughout my career as a mathematician, I've worked to separate truth from fiction, whether investigating epidemics or designing new statistical methods.

But the world is complicated, and that's something I'd become comfortable with.

For example, if we want to know whether a new treatment is effective against a disease, we can run a clinical trial to get the answer.

It won't tell us why the treatment works, but it will give us the evidence we need to take action.

So I found it interesting that in other areas of life, a lack of explainability does visibly bother people.

Take AI.

One of the concerns about autonomous machines like self-driving cars is we don't really understand why they make the decisions they do.