What Makes a Good Science Student?

Close you eyes and imagine a science student, as portrayed by popular culture. Almost certainly you have imagined someone who has memorized the entire textbook and never asks questions in class, only answers them. My definition of a good science student is exactly opposite to this.

Good science students are okay with saying "I don't know," aren't afraid of asking questions in front of their peers, and certainly don't spend the time to memorize the textbook. What has struck this idea home for me the most though, was a passage in Richard Feynman's book "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman." Feynman was a Nobel Prize winning Physicist, and a personal hero of mine growing up. In this book he details his experience in a graduate level biology course (that he, as a Physicist, was surprised to be keeping up with the other students in the class despite the advanced material that was from outside his field) where he was asked to present a research paper on the nerve impulses in a cat. He began his preparation by going to the library and asking for a "map of a cat" as he put it; a diagram of a cat's anatomy so that he could make sense out of all of the references in the paper. He then began his presentation outlining the various muscles and nerves. He was interrupted by a biology student, asking him to move on because they had all memorized all of the muscles and nerves in a cat.

His response, which I will never forget, was

" 'Oh, you do? Then no wonder I can catch up with you so fast after you've had four years of biology.' They had wasted all their time memorizing stuff like that, when it could be looked up in fifteen minutes" (Page 72, if you are interested)

Here is one of the most decorated physicists of all time clearly demonstrating that it is much more important to grasp the nature of scientific phenomenon and asking questions to improve that understanding than it is to memorize equations that can be looked up in minutes back in the 1940s, and can be looked up in a few seconds today. I try not to make this same mistake in my own studies, and I hope you don't make the same one!

The Future is Now

I am always surprised about the pace of scientific change. Not that I should be; many technologies that I think are just the work of imaginative science fiction writers are worked on just down the hall from my office. And yet, even after all of these surprises I still can't help but be amazed by the pace of technological announcement.

Take this weekend for example. I was attending the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting here in Boston, MA I saw a gaggle of reporters (I don't think gaggle is the proper word here, but they squawk like geese and turn their heads around so often that I think I will lump them together as geese) attending a session. Now these conferences are usually attending by experts in their fields who, while exciting for the few of us who understand their contributions to science, seldom draw a large crowd. So I stopped and listen to their talk.

This team of doctors and robotics specialists were announcing their bold new plan to implant the next generation of prosthetic limbs: not just limbs that could move and be controlled by humans, which I thought was exciting enough, but ones that could provide feedback to the human and allow them to feel what their robotic hand was grasping. What an amazing leap forward!

These are the types of discoveries that inspire me to move forward in my research here at MIT. Each scientists is passionately dedicated to their chosen field, and can make an incredible difference in the lives of people around the world. I hope these discoveries will also motivate you over the next few months together, understanding that these scientists, like all of the others making a difference in the world today, began their career in a classroom just like yours.

Read More at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57570080-76/man-to-get-first-bionic-hand-that-can-feel/