Recently I set up a virtual hosting account to host my web site. This is the Double-Zed equivalent of staking a claim to a piece of real estate, except that it lives in cyberspace. (Does that make it virtual estate?) I was prompted to do this primarily because my former Internet provide (MindSpring) turned out to be penurious with disk space and my vision -- while not grandiose -- couldn't be squeezed into a mere five megabytes. This isn't really worth worrying about.

Along with the new account, I decided to buy my own domain name. A domain name is the particular sequence of letters and numbers that uniquely identify a patch of cyberspace -- it's the yahoo.com or whitehouse.gov. As such, it's a combination of postal address, phone number, billboard, and vanity plate. Although apparently any old yippee can buy one, and though many people seem not to take too much care when they do, I took the issue very seriously. I discovered, to my bemusement, that a lot of the names I actually wanted were already gone. I felt a little like someone who'd headed around the Cape to California in 1849, only to discover that, during the trip, a million freebooting newcomers had gone overland and gotten there first.

So I hung back from the fray for a little while and pondered. I knew that, most likely, I would only do this once, so I wanted to do it right. Eventually, I settled on the following name: ubidubium.net. The uniform chorus of "Huh?" and blank stares convinced me that I had picked well. My mom thinks it's some obscure reference to Frank Sinatra; my elder sister is equally certain it really ties into Scooby Doo. At least one colleague tried to puzzle out a connection to hygiene, or at least, bathing: ub-i-dub-dub, three men in a tub? And -- perhaps sensitized by my usual quips -- a chemist friend felt it was obviously, somehow, a dig at his profession.

It isn't any of those, though I won't deny that it could have been and that it even would have made sense if it were.

ubidubium.net comes from the first half of a Latin phrase which I stumbled onto, appropriately enough, while cruising the Net. The phrase entire reads "ubi dubium, ibi libertas" and, it is averred, it means "Where there is doubt, there is freedom." When I read those words, I was instantly struck by them. Although I am no bomb-throwing anarchist, I have always looked askance at people encased in crystal certainty. Having my share of doubts, I am wary of those who don't. And my admittedly amateur knowledge of history suggests that humankind gets most lost the surer it is of the way. The Framers of the Constitution recognized the role of doubt in the democratic process, for they enshrined the right to dissent and the right to inform oneself in the most important of amendments, the First.

A few of my students found my explanation, well, unconvincing or unsettling. I teach Science, after all, and isn't Science about certainty? But it isn't, really. Science is a way to quantify our ignorance; it is a way to allow uncertainty without abandoning structure. Science is a process, not a product. As Einsten once said (I think), "No amount of experimentation can prove me right. One single experiment could prove me wrong." Science, one way to pursue truth, is startingly, perhaps puckishly, focused on falsehood. No statement in science is really true, in the definitive sense; it merely hasn't been contravened. Error bars aren't prison bars; they are gateways that leave little wiggle room for us. In between those bars lies transcendence.

So, in politics and in science, I believe that doubt serves a primary role in preserving freedoms. The pressure to conform is, by definition, a move to restrict freedom. And it is only through fearful, crystal certainty that one can blithely condemn others. To close, let me pose the age-old theological question: Could God have made the Universe in any way other than He did? After all, with infinite power, infinite knowledge, and infinite goodness, God would see all possibilities and know them for their inherent goodness or evil. Could a merciful, all-loving God possibly choose a less-than-minimally painful Universe? Knowing everything, one must follow things through to their logical, optimal conclusion, and one has no choice in the matter.

I prefer a little ignorance, a little doubt, and a lot of freedom.