Objectivity!!

Objectivity may be an excellant guiding focus when one is writing journalistically, or when one cares for simple knowledge in general. Yet I believe that it is only when you truly throw your heart into something and are able to see things from a larger perspective than what your head can teach you are you really able to live.

Objectivity teaches you not to care, not to get involved, and thus enables you to make more discoveries and gain more knowledge. Yet if you cannot see things from points of view other than the academic, what is the point? The film "The Medicine Man," for example. The characters are torn between using the last amount of a cure for cancer on a sick child or analyizing it to learn how to make more. For the good of the world, they should have chosen the latter. They chose instead to save the child and this choice from a scientific standpoint may have been incredibly wrong. But from a moralistic view, it couldn't have been more right. When you decide not to take aside, not to take a stand; you lose your identity as a person and become a stainless steel labratory—cold and empty.

If you throw your heart into something, and believe in it with all you have in you, you may find something you didn't know you were looking for. In the San Juan Islands, there is a place I care deeply about and have for the past ten years. It was the most beautiful piece of property I'd ever seen, grzed & wooded and placed neatly on the edge of a mountain lake. But others didn't see it the same way and made plans to turn my forest into a casino. However, I gathered friends who felt the same and we stayed in the woods for over a week, protesting. The land was saved. I afterwards discovered that there was an old man who lived there, who would not have budged if it killed him. Had I been a mere objective observer, I would have allowed the destruction of a beautiful forest & a peaceful old man. I have a heart, though, and I can take aside. I can protect those things that mean so much.

So tell me, what is the use of objectivity if it turns you into a lifeless robot? There is so much more than that, so have a heart & take it!

Why physics is beautiful!!!

	Physics is the most fundamental of the sciences. It is concerned with the most basic building blocks of all things - from ants to antennas, from quarks to quasars. The study of physics means trying to find out what the universe is made of, and how these things move and interact with each other. So in one sense, all the other sciences are built on the knowledge gained through the study of physics.
	Physics is beautiful. Physicists love simplicity. They are constantly striving to find the most fundamental ideas that can be used to describe even the most complex of phenomena. For example Newton found that only a very small  number of concepts could be used to describe just about all of the mechanical world - from steam engines to the motion of the planets. Not only is this beautiful, it's downright amazing!
	Physics teaches you to think. This might seem like a strange statement. The study of all subjects teach you to think. But because physics deals with the most basic concepts, the application of such techniques as "Separation of Variables" and "The Scientific Method" are never more clear than they are in the study of physics. Once mastered you will find that these methods can be applied to all subjects, including the business world and just coping with everyday life.
	Physics is a creative subject. The concepts of physics don't come easily. Someone has to come up with a theory to begin with. This is just as much a creative process as composing music. But where physics, and science in general, differ from the Arts is that no one will accept your theory unless you have some way of testing its validity. Experimental physicists sometimes have to be enormously creative in coming up with methods of testing theories and measuring things in the world around them. For example, how do you tell that there is a planet orbiting a star that is so far away that it appears as nothing more than a spec of light in even the most powerful telescopes?
	Physics gives you a new appreciation of the world around you. You can look a rainbow and say "Wow, pretty colours!", or you can marvel at the amazing interactions between photons and electrons that come together in that particular way when light from the sun strikes spherical water droplets in the sky, and that you perceive as a multicolored arc suspended in the air. Now that's awe!
	Physics is fun. Lastly, studying physics gives you the opportunity of playing with a lot of really cool toys!

MIKE?

Influence? Why is it that the people who influence us most influence us in ways that are not easily quantified? Through her work with abused children, my mother has shown me the heroism of selfless dedication to a worthy cause. By being an upstanding individual, my playwriting teacher in middle school acted as an inspiring male role model at a time when I needed one most. By being approachable and interesting, my World History teacher in my freshman year of high school opened my eyes to the connections between a society's culture and its history and broadened my view of cultures and the world. While these influences mean much to me and have contributed greatly to my development, they came too easily to mind.

The fact that I could sit down and write a list of how these people influenced me suggests that the influence did not alter me in any profound way. These people are all my elders, and perhaps I feel distanced from them. The person whose influence shook me to the deepest level is a person whose influence is nearly impossible to describe. Mike, the best friend I’ve ever had, changed me, and I changed him at one of the most crucial times in our lives: the seventh grade. We developed our personalities, our senses of humor, and our love for girls at the same time and in the same manner. It would cheapen his influence to quantify it; I am what I am because of him; I cannot say that about anybody else.

Mike came to my school in the seventh grade, and we immediately clicked. Before he came, I didn’t feel like an outcast by any means, as I had my friends that I had known since first grade. However, until Mike, I never had anyone my age to identify with completely. Mike made me feel confident in who I was; he reaffirmed my drives and my thoughts and my inspirations. At this awkward stage in our lives, we found uncritical appreciation in each other. We both were obsessed by movies and had a similar sense of humor. We had the same problems and the same thoughts. That was all it took.

Halfway through that same year, Mike and I became inseparable. In fact, our yearbook had a section that lists the names of students and what they were never seen without. Under Mike, it read: “Ted, ” and under Ted: “Mike.” I became a staple at his house and he at mine. We no longer had to ask our parents if it was ok to have a sleepover on weekends, they assumed we would. On weekdays, we usually walked over to his house, which was near school, and hung out there till I had to go home. Our favorite past time on those long afternoons after school was to walk to the nearby food mart and get a bag of chips and two 24 oz. Coca-Colas. Watching a movie, we would sit on his couch with our chips and Coke and talk about our dreams of working together in the movies. Mike wanted to be a director and actor, and I wanted to be an actor and a playwright/screenwriter. It was the perfect combination. We even tried writing a few scripts together.

Of course, as two seventh grade boys, it wasn’t all skips through the park either. We were extremely competitive and would get into brutal fights for seemingly no reason at all. One time, I pulled out a chunk of his hair, but I don’t remember what started the fight. I think that our connection was so intense that we could not have normal emotions toward each other. As friends, we were best friends, but in an argument, we wanted to fight each other to the death. Still, the Wrestlemania days were rare; ordinarily, the intensity of that connection was a good thing. I was pretty shy about girls, and when I did talk about them with guys, I would usually just say a girl was "hot." With Mike, I could really talk about girls and who they were; with Mike, I didn’t have to put on my public “cool” façade but could really say what I felt about a girl.

Then we went to separate high schools. We tried to maintain the friendship, and you might think we would have been able to since we had been so close, but we drifted apart. Our friendship was based on being near each constantly, of growing up in the same town, under the same conditions, with the same hopes, fears, and dreams. Now we still go to movies occasionally and hang out, but it's not the same, and we both know it. I thought Mike and I would be friends forever, and maybe we will be. I mean, we have to make those movies together, right? But the way things look right now, I doubt we will ever reconnect. Our friendship in the seventh grade was magical, and lightning doesn’t strike twice.

My playwriting teacher from middle school left, but I handled it. I learned a great deal from him, and I appreciate him for the subject he taught and the way that he taught it. I will probably miss my parents when I leave for college, but I doubt the separation will pain me deeply since the connection between parents and children will always be there. With Mike, I lost the best friend I ever had, and I lost that forever. Losing that kind of bond cuts deep, and I know it's the type of wound that doesn't heal. It’s the type of wound you just live with.

But just because we're not friends anymore, it doesn't slight the times we had when we were friends. Those times are what influenced me so deeply. No, Mike did not work some lesson into my heart, he worked himself into my heart, and even if I never see the guy again he changed me forever. I think that finding someone who you truly connect with and feel that you were destined to meet, someone who you feel truly understands you and makes you feel special, I think meeting someone like that is one of the most profound experiences you can have.

Hiking to understanding!!

Surrounded by thousands of stars, complete silence, and spectacular mountains, I stood atop New Hampshire's Presidential Range awestruck by nature's beauty. Immediately, I realized that I must dedicate my life to understanding the causes of the universe's beauty. In addition, the hike taught me several valuable lessons that will allow me to increase my understanding through scientific research.

Although the first few miles of the hike up Mt. Madison did not offer fantastic views, the vistas became spectacular once I climbed above tree line. Immediately, I sensed that understanding the natural world parallels climbing a mountain. To reach my goal of total comprehension of natural phenomena, I realized that I must begin with knowledge that may be uninteresting by itself. However, this knowledge will form the foundation of an accurate view of the universe. Much like every step while hiking leads the hiker nearer the mountain peak, all knowledge leads the scientist nearer total understanding.

Above tree line, the barrenness and silence of the hike taught me that individuals must have their own direction. All hikers know that they must carry complete maps to reach their destinations; they do not allow others to hold their maps for them. Similarly, surrounded only by mountaintops, sky, and silence, I recognized the need to remain individually focused on my life's goal of understanding the physical universe.

At the summit, the view of the surrounding mountain range is spectacular. The panorama offers a view of hills and smaller mountains. Some people during their lives climb many small hills. However, to have the most accurate view of the world, I must be dedicated to climbing the biggest mountains I can find. Too often people simply hike across a flat valley without ascending because they content themselves with the scenery. The mountain showed me that I cannot content myself with the scenery. When night fell upon the summit, I stared at the slowly appearing stars until they completely filled the night sky. Despite the windy conditions and below freezing temperatures, I could not tear myself away from the awe-inspiring beauty of the cosmos. Similarly, despite the frustration and difficulties inherent in scientific study, I cannot retreat from my goal of universal understanding.

When observing Saturn's rising, the Milky Way Cloud, and the Perseid meteor shower, I simultaneously felt a great sense of insignificance and purpose. Obviously, earthly concerns are insignificant to the rest of the universe. However, I experienced the overriding need to understand the origins and causes of these phenomena. The hike also strengthened my resolve to climb the mountain of knowledge while still taking time to gaze at the wondrous scenery. Only then can the beauty of the universe and the study of science be purposefully united. Attaining this union is my lifelong goal.

Heroes

The term "hero" comes from the ancient Greeks. For them, a hero was a mortal who had done something so far beyond the normal scope of human experience that he left an immortal memory behind him when he died, and thus received worship like that due the gods. Many of these first heroes were great benefactors of humankind: Hercules, the monster killer; Asclepius, the first doctor; Dionysus, the creator of Greek fraternities. But people who had committed unthinkable crimes were also called heroes; Oedipus and Medea, for example, received divine worship after their deaths as well. Originally, heroes were not necessarily good, but they were always extraordinary; to be a hero was to expand people's sense of what was possible for a human being.

Today, it is much harder to detach the concept of heroism from morality; we only call heroes those whom we admire and wish to emulate. But still the concept retains that original link to possibility. We need heroes first and foremost because our heroes help define the limits of our aspirations. We largely define our ideals by the heroes we choose, and our ideals -- things like courage, honor, and justice -- largely define us. Our heroes are symbols for us of all the qualities we would like to possess and all the ambitions we would like to satisfy. A person who chooses Martin Luther King or Susan B. Anthony as a hero is going to have a very different sense of what human excellence involves than someone who chooses, say, Paris Hilton, or the rapper 50 Cent. And because the ideals to which we aspire do so much to determine the ways in which we behave, we all have a vested interest in each person having heroes, and in the choice of heroes each of us makes.

Again, the critical moral contribution of heroes is the expansion of our sense of possibility. If we most of us, as Thoreau said, live lives of quiet desperation, it is because our horizons of possibility are too cramped. Heroes can help us lift our eyes a little higher. Immanuel Kant said that "from the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." That may well be true. But some have used that warped, knotted timber to build more boldly and beautifully than others, and we may all benefit by their examples. Heaven knows we need those examples now.

Coffee!!

When exams are in progress, students have sleepless nights, study as hard as they can! In all this rush and tension to complete their studies the best companion is a great cup of coffee. Keeps you sharp and doesn't let you get sleepy!

That little experiment!

Being a science student is tough. With all the laws in physics and the infinite reactions in chemistry, it is indeed a tough choice for subjects!
But what we miss in all this madness is that, things can be so beautiful. The practical applications of physics laws is so fascinating! And specially the compounds which form in chemistry practicals are so amazing!
I came across one multicolored solution a few months back.
It was the first time in practical lab and we were doing a salt analysis. We were given a set of bases and a salt. The acids were openly available to every student. Among the group of students, I was the first one to complete it. It came as a shock that I finished first in a acceptable manner as there were students of twice as much IQ as compared to me.
Since I now had nothing to do, I was getting bored. Being a naive student I conducted a experiment of my own. I took all the acids and all the bases and the salt and mixed them all and then ran away from it. As soon as all things mixed it spontaneously bursted into fire! I was lucky the compound didn't release NO2 or it would have been much worse. The flame was very beautiful green! And when the flame went out, a compound, an epitome of scene. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen!

Success!

Learning the lessons taught by failure is a sure route to success. The United States of America can be seen as a success that emerged from failure: by learning from the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, the founding fathers were able to create the Constitution, the document on which America is built. Google Inc., the popular Internet search engine, is another example of a success that arose from learning from failure, though in this case Google learned from the failures of its competitors. Another example that shows how success can arise from failure is the story of Rod Johnson, who started a recruiting firm that arose from Johnson’s personal experience of being laid off.      The United States, the first great democracy of the modern world, is also one of the best examples of a success achieved by studying and learning from earlier failures. After just five years of living under the Articles of Confederation, which established the United States of America as a single country for the first time, the states realized that they needed a new document and a new more powerful government. In 1786, the Annapolis convention was convened. The result, three years later, was the Constitution, which created a more powerful central government while also maintaining the integrity of the states. By learning from the failure of the Articles, the founding fathers created the founding document of a country that has become both the most powerful country in the world and a beacon of democracy.      Unlike the United States, which had its fair share of ups and downs over the years, the Internet search engine company, Google Inc., has suffered few setbacks since it went into business in the late 1990s. Google has succeeded by studying the failures of other companies in order to help it innovate its technology and business model. Google identified and solved the problem of assessing the quality of search results by using the number of links pointing to a page as an indicator of the number of people who find the page valuable. Suddenly, Google’s search results became far more accurate and reliable than those from other companies, and now Google’s dominance in the field of Internet search is almost absolute.      The example of Rod Johnson’s success as an entrepreneur in the recruiting field also shows how effective learning from mistakes and failure can be. Rather than accept his failure after being laid off, Johnson decided to study it. After a month of research, Johnson realized that his failure to find a new job resulted primarily from the inefficiency of the local job placement agencies, not from his own deficiencies. A month later, Johnson created Johnson Staffing to correct this weakness in the job placement sector. Today Johnson Staffing is the largest job placement agency in South Carolina, and is in the process of expanding into a national corporation.      Failure is often seen as embarrassing, something to be denied and hidden. But as the examples of the U.S. Constitution , Google, and Rod Johnson prove, if an individual, organization, or even a nation is strong enough to face and study its failure, then that failure can become a powerful teacher. The examples of history and business demonstrate that failure can be the best catalyst of success, but only if people have the courage to face it head on.

Madam Curie!

One of the memorable images from Eisenstein’s classic silent film on the Russian Revolution is the toppling of a statue. The destruction of the statue symbolizes the throwing out of the old order along with its heroes and replacing it with a new. Considering this human tendency to ‘ring out the old and ring in the new’ it is surprising that any heroic figures from the past survive in the history books, but they do. There are some heroes who do not get erased from the pages.

One of my personal all-time heroes is Marie Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. At a time when women were not allowed to enter the University of Warsaw, her home city, Marie worked as a governess before getting the opportunity to enroll in the Sorbonne in Paris. She graduated at the top of her class and became the first woman to take a degree in physics from the Sorbonne.

But it is not simply for her breaking out of traditional molds that she is remembered. Her scientific work on radiation led to her two Nobel Prizes: the first joint with her husband, the second alone, after Pierre Curie’s death. She nearly did not get the second prize because of rumors of ‘misconduct’ in her private life. But she bravely went to Stockholm, despite opposition, and said that she believed that there was no connection between her private life and her scientific work. She died of cancer caused by exposure to radium, one of the elements that she discovered.

Many great people from the past have had their reputations destroyed by exposure of their human frailties. But some, like Marie Curie, achieve such greatness that they will be remembered for their achievements. She symbolizes the human quest for knowledge and the capacity to sacrifice self for a higher goal. Women everywhere will gain strength from seeing one woman who could not he suppressed by outdated conventions.

We need our heroes for the inspiration they offer to us and to future generations. Names such as Curie should not, and in fact cannot, be erased form the History books: they tell us so much about the human capacity to strive for excellence.