Beyond day science: How night science drives scientific breakthroughs
The story goes that, while writing a textbook, August Kekulé felt tired, turned to his fireplace, and dozed off. It was then that he had the dream of his lifetime. He envisioned a snake eating its own tail — a vision that inspired him to hypothesize benzene’s cyclic structure, marking a significant breakthrough in chemistry. In another account of a pivotal nighttime breakthrough, Otto Loewi woke up in the middle of the night, jotted down some notes, and went back to sleep. He could not read his scribble the next morning, but that same vision reappeared the following night. This time, Otto headed to the lab — allegedly, around 3 a.m. — to experiment on frog hearts. His late-night insight led him to discover the first neurotransmitter.
Legendary scientific stories like these compel me to think about how breakthroughs happen. I came across the concept of “night science,” first coined by François Jacob and now popularized through a podcast by Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher. “Day science” is the systematic, methodological, hypothesis-driven way of doing science. It's the traditional approach to formalizing a hypothesis via the scientific method. Night science, on the other hand, is unruly, exploratory, and boundless — it’s where hypotheses are conceived and bold ideas are born.
Night science gives us the lens to see the unseen, the tools to unravel the undiscovered. It is the serendipitous, creative realm where transformative scientific leaps occur — the discontinuities we all fantasize. However, while visionary science calls us to go beyond day science, night science is junk most of the time. It's really important that we cycle through iterations of both modalities of doing science to interrogate our boldest ideas with rigorous validation.
In reflecting on stories of scientific breakthroughs, I have come across two important elements.
- Creativity: The essence of night science lies in creativity — to ask questions no one has asked before or to propose innovative approaches to long-standing problems. In night science, we go on paradigm-shifting journeys that can enable landscapes of fundamental discoveries or make real-world impact through applications.
- Interdisciplinary collaboration: Collaboration often serves as the bridge between an idea and reality. Our scientific ideas bring value to the world only if we can validate or apply them. The intersection of different fields often sparks bold ideas and groundbreaking solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges. Collaboration is a powerful engine that fuels creativity.
I have experienced signs of visionary science working on a Knight-Hennessy KHeystone project with fellow scholar Ivan Specht to develop or apply models like JUNIPER to simulate epidemic outbreaks. Collaborating on a project that spans multiple disciplines — from public health to applied mathematics to biology — sparked many discussions that led to moments of creativity and inspired me to approach my own chemistry and biology research differently.
Combined with the disciplined structure of day science, night science drives scientific discovery and innovation. Night science kindles the dreams of a lifetime, shedding light on hidden routes that drive day science forward
Yu Tin Lin (2024 cohort) is a Knight-Hennessy scholar pursuing a PhD in chemistry at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. He conducts research at the intersection of chemistry and artificial intelligence, aiming to better understand and manipulate biological systems.
Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.
