[Haruchunja] When Life Is Hard, It's Good to Start Studying <3>

Editor's NoteFrom Greek and Roman mythology to artificial intelligence, Professor Park Chi-wook studies a new field every summer because 'studying' is the most certain comfort and joy in our uncertain lives. Listening to the cicadas crying loudly in the midsummer heat, he learns that the cicadas' life cycle is the result of a subtle tug-of-war between predators and prey, and he becomes immersed in the wondrous world of evolutionary biology. Following his son's fishing trips, he becomes addicted to fishing games and begins studying ichthyology as he encounters the diverse appearances of various fish species. Eventually, he arrives at the astonishing knowledge that all humanity was once fish. From familiar topics like food and language to relatively unfamiliar fields such as puzzles and the human body... He does not know what he will study next time, but it is certain that this kind of study makes life more worth living. Word count: 1118 characters.

The year 2021 was the year when Brood 10 of the 17-year cicadas emerged. Even before May, stories about cicadas flooded the media. The reason is that Brood 10 is the largest brood. When Brood 10 last emerged in 2004, an enormous number of cicadas covered the eastern United States. The offspring of those cicadas had spent 17 years underground and it was finally time for them to emerge. Sure enough, a huge number of cicadas appeared. On the U.S. East Coast, the waves washed up so many dead cicadas that the sandy beaches were completely blackened. Indiana, being at the western edge of Brood 10's habitat, was not as severely affected, but still, there were so many cicadas that one wondered how there could be so many. Moreover, the forest attached to our house was well preserved, so when walking in the yard, one could collide with flying cicadas due to their abundance. The noise was needless to say unbearable. Although the noise was distressing, I understood that after waiting 17 years, they finally come out to have a one-month winter date, so it was understandable. At this point, one might pose a philosophical question about the essence of the cicada: is it the winged adult that lives only for a month or the nymph that lives underground for 17 years? I do not know the answer either.

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There is also a mathematical question regarding the life cycles of the 17-year and 13-year cicadas. Both 13 and 17 are prime numbers, having no divisors other than 1 and themselves. It is fascinating that they endure underground for so long before emerging, but why specifically 13 and 17? The explanation is found in the book After Darwin by the late legendary evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. Evolutionary biology explains that cicadas evolved this way to avoid overlapping with the life cycles of their predators. For example, if cicadas emerged every 12 years, their life cycle would coincide with predators whose life cycles are 2, 3, 4, or 6 years, and these predators could evolve a preference for cicadas. Therefore, cicadas with prime-numbered life cycles that are less likely to coincide with predator cycles had a survival advantage, resulting in the 13-year and 17-year cicadas we observe today. When I first encountered this astonishing phenomenon in Gould's book, I was so amazed to realize that the tug-of-war between predator and prey through evolution produced such a mathematical outcome.

- Park Chi-wook, When Life Is Hard, It’s Good to Start Studying, Whale Book, 17,500 KRW

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