Citizen Science #25 by Jamie Zvirzdin

New Physics Mystery Series: Developing Nancy Drew Grit

“But wonder on, till truth makes all things plain,” Shakespeare wrote in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (Act V, Scene 1). I have loved mysteries ever since I started reading Nancy Drew books as a young girl. Nancy Drew was generous and funny, smart and brave. That she was pretty and popular were secondary to these traits. She also paid attention to details, stood up to bullies and, most critically, she didn’t give up.

One night a few weeks ago, dealing with insomnia, I decided to read one of the Nancy Drew books my mother-in-law had gifted me—books she had also read and loved as a girl. But “The Ghost of Blackwood Hall” (1967) didn’t put me to sleep, as I was expecting it to; instead, I stayed up the rest of the night reading, smiling, finding secret panels and tricking the tricksters. Even decades after I first read these books, it was yet again a joy to put the clues together with Nancy to figure out “whodunit” and to bring the sinister racketeers to justice. Even though I was tired the next day, I was grateful for the powerful reminder of how satisfying and enjoyable it can be to work on solving a problem.

While the books are certainly dated, I still admire Nancy for her tenacity in confronting and solving problems. It is a skill to possess not only calm resilience but also the creativity and care needed to solve very difficult problems we encounter in this life—problems of all stripes, including “The Mystery of the Mean Dude Online,” “The Mystery of Denied Insurance Claims” and, most importantly, “The Mystery of the Missing Keys.” I believe hearing about other mysteries and what our fellow sleuths are doing to solve them gives us courage to confront whatever problem we might be dealing with at the moment.

In 2023, this “Citizen Science” column focused on distinguishing science from pseudoscience; in 2024, we sought to demystify energy by studying the various flavors of real energy. This year, we’ll further develop our critical thinking skills and sleuthing abilities by looking at outstanding mysteries in physics—what the problem is, why the solution continues to elude us, and what’s been done so far to solve it. In doing so, it is my hope we will not only get closer to solving these long-standing, wonder-inducing mysteries but also develop the resilience to face our other more immediate and prosaic challenges with grace, patience, and some Nancy Drew grit.

My dad and I always joked that, inevitably, there’s a chapter in every Nancy Drew book titled, “TRAPPED!” or “KIDNAPPED!” While being trapped or kidnapped is unlikely to be an issue in science, we do get stuck. Sometimes it takes months, years, decades, even centuries to solve some problems. Just as Nancy and Ned Nickerson were caught in a quagmire in “The Ghost of Blackwood Hall,” we sometimes feel trapped in the quicksand of our own negativity. But working together and having a bit of faith in ourselves and in each other goes a long way, even if the path to a solution is long and messy.

Like Nancy Drew, we will also make mistakes along the way, as will those we work with. This is part of the very human process of figuring out how our universe works. In his 1916 book “Stray Birds,” the Indian Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore wrote, “If you shut your door to all errors, truth will be shut out.” In solving lingering mysteries, it may be the case that previous authorities were wrong. But believing claims that all previous scientists were wrong about something—say, vaccines or climate change—is likewise an error. It would be a mistake to willy-nilly jettison the hard-won, replicable results of past scientists.

It is a precious balance to remain open to important and good changes while reserving a healthy amount of skepticism. Our own cells, with their semi-permeable membranes, are a great example of this balance, but even they don’t always get it right: Some toxins and viruses sneak past our defenses and must be actively battled.

Finally, working on one mystery can often help solve quite a different mystery. It is a great honor for me to work with the Telescope Array Collaboration, through the High-Energy Astrophysics Institute at the University of Utah, on solving the mystery of where ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays come from. More on this mystery next month, but curiously, our cosmic-ray detectors also helped us figure out a different mystery: how highly energetic gamma-ray bursts develop during certain lightning strikes, a discovery detailed in our paper published December 2024 in the “Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres” (https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JD041720).

I was not the lead author of this paper, the Nancy Drew who put two and two together—I was more of a Bess or a George, Nancy’s friends—but no Nancy Drew can or should be expected to solve all the crimes totally on her own. To collaborate, to cooperate, to assist, to encourage, to promote—these are likewise skills we need to succeed in solving these difficult mysteries together. While it also helps to have a rich, well-connected lawyer for a father, as Nancy did, most of us don’t, so we must make do with what resources we have available, in both science and life.

As we encounter physics mysteries this year, remember that the best mysteries don’t just reveal answers—they teach us how to ask better questions. So steady your resolve, keep your wits about you and don’t be fooled by phosphorescent schemers. Let’s work to solve all the mysteries of the universe, starting with the exciting mystery of “The Clue in the Cosmic Balloon.”

Jamie Zvirzdin researches cosmic rays with the Telescope Array Project, teaches science writing at Johns Hopkins University and is the author of “Subatomic Writing.”