The Unsolvable Puzzle

Leo Szilard was one of the smartest people of the 20th Century. He conceived the idea of nuclear energy, patented the process of using it in a power plant, and helped Albert Einstein write the letter that sparked the Manhattan Project. All in his 30s. Like any genius, Szilard's curiosity was diverse. After World War II he became a biologist, attracted to a field that hadn't been explored as deeply as physics. The new field didn't just change what he learned, but how he learned. Szilard spent hours a day in the bathtub, solving physics problems in his head. Biology ruined that routine, because, as Szilard later said, he constantly had to get out of the tub to look up a fact. Physics is guided by rational laws that have never, and will never, change. A master like Szilard could reason his way through problems like nuclear energy with only his mind as a tool. If an idea in his head followed the laws and reason of physics, it would in real life, and would continue working forever. That's how a guy designed a nuclear bomb in the bathtub. Biology is different. It's guided by things like accident and mutation, so specific behaviors sometimes defy logic and can change entirely as evolution bulldozes the past. The flu virus has killed 731,000 Americans in the last 40 years – more than died in World War II – and not for lack of effort by the medical community. A virus that mutates and evolves means a vaccine that might work today won't work tomorrow. And since the mutation itself is an accident, researchers are kept in perpetual scramble. Like an unsolvable puzzle. The physics vs. biology analogy is relevant in investing.