The second law of thermodynamics binds us to a universe that is forever changing and will never be the same. We are part of a process whose beginnings are mysterious and uncertain and whose end is unimaginable. We are part of a myth whose first letter of the first word of the first chapter began with a Big Bang. The protagonist in this legend is Energy. The pages are numbered in entropy and time. Science like other mythologies attempts to retell this story in its own vocabularies: in numbers and formulas, in the documentation of pattern and repetition. Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology: these are dialects with which we retell our own existence; these are inks with which we write our scripts. But each discipline alone tells only a fraction of the story; harnessed together they give rise to depth, and tone, and color.

Throughout the weekend I have been thinking of metaphors that may describe Science One and its role in the integration of the sciences. The list is filled with the usual clichés but I have failed to find a precise metaphor. Science One is like the zoom lens of a camera; it points in one direction, closes in to analyze the details and then zooms out to analyze the entire picture before zooming in to another region for detail. Science One is like the para-crystalline network of chlorophyll in plants. Organized together in such a way the sciences resonate and do more work than they could individually. Science One is like the blending of different languages, each with its own intrinsic character. In a sense it is like combining the Inuit's hundreds of words for snow together with the North African's hundreds of names for wind. Together they form a better description of the world. But these oversimplified comparisons fall short, they fail to recognize the gaps and contradictions among the disciplines, they fail to recognize the overlaps.

In a sense, my unsuccessful search for a metaphor to describe Science One becomes the metaphor I seek. There is not one perspective from which to describe and experience the world, be it Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics or Biology. Even when combined, these perspectives may clarify some aspects of the world while clouding over others. More than anything Science One is a humbling experience. It clarifies (a little) our present limitations.

By now you may be thinking that underlying this essay is a vague and ambiguous excuse for not writing about anything, for not taking a point of view; a clever admission of defeat made to sound as if it were a victory. So I will take up your challenge and champion a cause. Cursed with indecisiveness and open mindedness (if there is a difference between the two), I will champion both the causes. I will claim that only by combining the sciences can we provide the best description of the universe and I will also argue that combining the sciences does not always lead to clarity.

Consider electro-magnetic radiation. I am a photon born in the sun. I am energy in the form of light. Now you may be interested in what I am really like; my personality. Well, you never really know what anyone is like, but you can usually say something about them: the color of their eyes for example or, if you wanted a behavioral description, you could talk about whether they are aggressive, cheerful, or manic depressive. Say you asked Physics what I was like. Physics can be rather evasive and vague. She will tell you that I have both particle and wave properties but am neither. It is Physics that calls me photon but gives no further explanation.

Now Mathematics is an idealist. Mathematics, like the Greeks in the sculpting of their gods, will take one of my characteristics, make it perfect, and celebrate it with a work of art. Mathematics will describe me as "sin(kx - wt + 0)". Mathematics will tell you that when I encounter another one of myself we can unite in superposition and become an altogether different us that is no longer us but rather a completely different form of me, another "sin (kx - (ot + 0)."

Ask Chemistry what I am like and he won't talk about me at all. Chemistry likes to talk about what I do to others. Chemistry, for example, will tell you how it is that I can excite Hemoglobin so much that she will blush, or how I can make Chlorophyll bright green as if with envy. However, what Chemistry realizes is that somehow I have been transformed and am now (at least part of me) possessed by that molecule that I excited. As in all relationships, part of one individual becomes the other, thus transforming both. Chemistry is not so different from Mathematics. In all this confusion, however, I have nearly forgotten to tell you what Biology will tell you about me.

Biology will tell you that I am the one, that without me she could not exist. Biology knows this from her conversations with Physics, Chemistry, and Math. They go to cocktail parties together and exchange information. If you join them, cut through all the small talk and ask them about me. They will tell you.

You know, however, what those cocktail parties are like. What with the martini that you have, you are bound to get a little tipsy. And tonight, Chemistry is not as interested in talking about me as he is in flirting with Physics. Biology herself is misinterpreting the signals from Math believing that his evident blush is partly due to her presence and partly to his scotch. She is pleased by the first and plans to take advantage of the second. What Biology does not know, however, is that Math has been madly in love with Physics since the last cocktail party and that his hopes and expectations are now dashed by Physics' positive responses to Chemistry's advances. Mathematics is waiting for just the right moment to sneak away with that bottle of Ballantine's. As you can see, things are bound to get confusing among these four individuals and there are times when you will just have to visit each at their own offices to talk about the Universe.

In the meantime, finish that glass you have in your right hand and put out that cigarette. Let yourself diffuse slowly into the Brownian motion of the dance floor. I am there, dissected into my components by the filters on the floor lights, scattered about the room by the disco globe hanging from the ceiling. We swirl around in cycles you and I, in that unceasing current of entropy and energy.