As mentioned in my first post, much of my writing will be based on discussions between my uncle Ravi and I (from who I have just recieved notice will be a guest columnist on this blog, yes – really, hold onto your seats) - deviating from time to time of course (as is the nature of curious humans, I feel) – but returning nonetheless.
Today’s post will be on a subject that is of mutual passion to the both of us – science. Every summer, aside from the downtown city excursions and indulgence of delicious cuisine, we make an attempt to visit the California Academy of Sciences, in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco.
Each visit is undeniably similar - hundreds of people arrive at Golden Gate Park on Saturday and Sunday and line up to spend the day at the Academy of Sciences. This summer, a thought occurred to me while I waited to purchase my ticket: Just how much interest within the sciences is an exhibit like this generating?
I turned to Ravi and asked him his opinion on the matter. Why do hundreds of thousands of people routinely visit exhibits such as museums, science exposiums, shows, etc., only to never even set foot in a college level physics or mathematics class? He too was puzzled. All these people showing up to visit a science museum, but probably only a handful within the crowd had anything to do with the subject outside the weekend getaway.
Walking around the Academy of Sciences puzzled me even more. Families would bring their children only to further perpetuate the fact that, as my father would say, “no one had any concept of anything”. Completely incorrect notions of science spewed from mothers and fathers everywhere, much to my dismay. Nevertheless, exhibits illustrating physics concepts that govern the way our world works were sprawled across the massive first floor of the building and parents continued to drag their children from “Global warming, and How it Affects us” to “Darwin and the Origin of Species”, not to mention everything else in between. At the end of the day however, my personal feeling is that when these children grow older and go off to college – science will probably be the least of their concern, or even their major. Many of them will never take Chemistry 101, or even Integral Calculus. I simply do not understand this. If science, presented in a social fashion, using laymans terms and interpretation cannot generate interest within a community, what can? Surely drawing large crowds to an International Mathematical Olympiad competition can’t possibly be exciting.
Maybe it is the nature of the subject itself – for most who aren’t very curious, or should I say, “couldn’t care less”, science is very dry and boring. People don’t really care about why something works a certain way – as long as it continues to work in that same fashion so that they can go about their business. When a 400,000 lb Boeing 747 takes off and suspends itself in the air for several hours, or even days, people’s immediate thoughts don’t stream as : How have we made this possible? Why does this work this way? Can we improve this design? It’s more along the lines of: I hope this thing doesn’t crash. When are we getting there? Why does this take so long?
Fostering students in areas of science seems to be difficult. Parents who force their children into math and science often fail admirably, while those that engage them in the art of problem solving succeed. As a graduate student, and hopefully soon to be doctoral candidate, I am mesmerized by the art of problem solving. How can we approach this problem? What is known? Where do we need to get from here? The process is often more rewarding than the solution itself. It alarms me that many of my peers, especially undergraduates, even within JHU, don’t seem to understand this. Many possess the aptitude, (memory & retention, ability to reapply knowledge while making connections, etc) but very few show a general enthusiasm or interest. Oh well. Perhaps it’s not for everyone…
