Exploring the Unanswerable

The Honors Program is all about examining questions—whether those questions are answerable or not. During his time in the program, Garrett Suggs, a senior studying physics and astronomy, found merit in diving into complex questions, even when he was left without a conclusion.

For his thesis, Suggs decided to research the Hubble tension, a discrepancy in cosmology between two methods of measuring the universe’s expansion rate. Although no professors at BYU research the Hubble tension, Suggs felt very passionate about the topic and decided to go for it.

Suggs quickly came to realize that researching such a niche subject without an advisor who had expertise in the field was stressful and frustrating. However, working independently forced him to learn more about the research process and develop patience with himself. “When I encounter something that isn’t making sense or I’m having a hard time understanding, I think it’s easier for me to take a step back and say, okay well, that’s fine. I can still figure it out,” he explained.

For Honors students planning their thesis, Suggs suggested, “It’s okay to do research on something that you’re not necessarily committing your whole life to.” It’s important for Honors students to consider choosing a research topic to which an advisor can contribute, even if it isn’t their first choice. “There’s a lot of cool stuff in the world and in the universe, and my experience has been that there’s a certain threshold that once you get past, it starts to get interesting…just give it a bit of time and it’ll probably start to be interesting.”

Looking back, Suggs is unsure whether he would rather have chosen another thesis topic, or if he still would have chosen to research the Hubble tension. Not having another person to consult with about cosmology was difficult and filled with setbacks, but in the Honors Program, he has developed a unique response to failure. Suggs’s Great Questions Essay was focused on discovering how we should respond to our failures and the failures of others. “Failure to some extent is inevitable, so if you always catastrophize and say oh well, this is terrible because I failed…you’re not really going to get anywhere,” he said.

Suggs didn’t come to a solid conclusion in his Great Questions Essay or in his thesis, but this doesn’t mean he didn’t grow and learn in the process. He asked himself, “Was it a failure to not choose a project that I could have had better mentorship on? Maybe. Is it the end of the world? No. Is it going to keep me from graduating? No. Did I still learn from it? Yeah.”

Looking forward, Suggs is planning on going to grad school in the fall. He is hoping to continue research, but likely in a different field. He said that one of his greatest takeaways from the Honors Program is “being willing and open to learning in any form that that takes.” In Suggs’s case, learning even takes place while exploring the unanswerable.