Our dwindling attention spans

The markings in the ancient clay tablets look like the footprints of dozens of birds. To an untrained eye, they are unintelligible.

Mathieu Ossendrijver, a German astrophysicist and professor of the history of ancient science, knew they had something to do with geometry. The four cuneiform tablets housed in the British Museum in London are from ancient Babylon, what is now southern Iraq, and date between 350 BC and 50 BC.

For years, he studied them. Then, in 2014, he received photos of other tablets at the museum, and one in particular finally let him decode the mystery.

It took another year, but by comparing this new Rosetta Stone-like tablet to four others, Ossendrijver realized the Babylonians were using relatively sophisticated geometry to track the orbit of Jupiter — at least 1,400 years before the medieval mathematicians at Oxford got there.

And so the breadth of human knowledge expands again.

But that’s not the point, not today. It’s the time Ossendrijver spent on this. Years.

That’s how we measure the arc of scientific discovery. It’s the long game. And I wonder whether — in our fast-paced, sound-bite, multitasking, 140-character tweeting, hyper-abbreviated emoji-enriched texting lives — we’re losing our appreciation for that.

We demand instant gratification, crave quick success, praise the fast turnaround, embrace every overnight sensation and have no patience for anything that’s methodical.

How much do we value or understand the chemist hunched over her microscope? The archaeologist patiently chiseling rock and delicately brushing away sand? The astronomer peering through his telescope?

Years can go by in a lonely pursuit, with no guarantee of success, buoyed only by one’s belief the pursuit is worth making. How many of us encourage our children in those directions?

It took researchers at Oregon Health and Science University more than a decade to clone human embryos, collect stem cells from them, and grow them into skin and heart cells.

Gregor Mendel spent seven years in the 19th century experimenting with peas and establishing the laws of heredity, which led to him being hailed as the father of genetics — nearly 40 years later, long after his death.

The first transplant of a human heart took place in 1967 after centuries of work by countless scientists in immunology, suturing techniques, experimental organ transplantation and other areas.

Progress takes time.

Deep down, we do know this. We all like to tell ourselves the effort was worth it when a tough job is done. But we also like shortcuts, because time has become such a precious commodity.

But what are we losing in the process?

Is it all tied in with the ongoing decline in reading? With the reduction in an average person’s attention span to a mere eight seconds — one second less than the notoriously flighty goldfish?

I am buoyed every January when the Intel science competition winners are announced. One of the three Long Islanders who reached this year’s finals is Rachel Mashal, 18, from John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore. She wanted to see whether drug addiction can be prevented by manipulating genes and diet. So she studied the addiction pathways of fruit flies — spending 500 hours of precious teen time in a lab. May we always have such strivers.

Ossendrijver, one of them, says there are thousands of other tablets scattered around the world that still have not been deciphered. He wonders what secrets they hold.

Give him time. Give all of them time.

Michael Dobie is a member of Newsday’s editorial board.

By Michael Dobie

michael.dobie1@newsday.commwdobie

Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.