Meanwhile : A scientist’s walk

New discoveries are less likely to come from a race for rapid results than from an attitude that carries questions forward while attentively observing what lies around us.

Han Seon-hwa

The author is a former president of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information.

Walking is the slowest way to move, yet it is the way we encounter the most. As we walk, we take in scenery, register sounds and scents and quietly organize the flow of our thoughts. Science, too, gives walking a meaningful place. A steady walking rhythm activates the brain’s default mode network, a system associated with reflection and early-stage idea formation. When this network is engaged, the brain draws on past experience and accumulated knowledge to generate tentative ideas that can grow into free association and creative insight.

Susumu Kitagawa, a Kyoto University professor, holds a sample of a porous material he developed, in Japan on Sept. 13, 2018. He was a co-recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.[AP/YONHAP]

Neuroscience research shows that the hippocampus becomes more active during walking, supporting memory formation and spatial awareness. The cues that emerge along a walking route help reconnect thoughts that had been scattered. For this reason, many scientists have said that better questions come to them on foot rather than at a desk.

Charles Darwin famously built a gravel path near his home and called it his “thinking path,” walking it daily. In his notes, he wrote that he always turned to this path when sorting through complex ideas. Albert Einstein also believed walking was essential to clarity and creativity. While working at Princeton, he made a habit of walking about 2.4 kilometers to and from work each day.

The value of walking is not limited to historical figures. One of the recipients of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Susumu Kitagawa of Japan, has pointed to walking as an important source of his scientific productivity, describing his morning walks as mental preparation rather than simple exercise. Academic research supports this view. A 2014 study by the Department of Education Psychology at Stanford University found that walking can increase creative output by as much as 60 percent.

A walk does not need a clearly defined destination. What matters is not arriving quickly but moving slowly enough to notice unexpected scenes along the way. Science works in a similar fashion. New discoveries are less likely to come from a race for rapid results than from an attitude that carries questions forward while attentively observing what lies around us.

This column aims to walk alongside science in that spirit. By moving at the same pace as its readers, it seeks to translate scientific thinking into the language of everyday life, so that science can become a tool for understanding the world more precisely and with greater warmth.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.