Young Scientists

While enjoying my coffee at the “Bucks” this morning, I listened to Dr. Dave explain the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath, a typical topic for our eclectic group. Jill leaned across and cautioned Davey that he was frightening the little girl sitting near us. I noticed that the girl was wearing a Peninsula High Water Polo sweatshirt and she did not seem to be the least frightened. She was also studying physics! Of course that caught my attention and I asked if she had attended the Einstein play last night. She regretted that she had not and then introduced her girlfriend who was studying chemistry. These two young women, both juniors, were studying hard sciences and planning to take more next year and in college.

Maybe there is hope for our technological future. Not nearly enough American students are going into the hard sciences, engineering or math while the developing world is doing the opposite. It is a serious problem that I will speak of in a later post. For now, I was glad to see the enthusiasm in these two young women. They have chosen to take challenging subjects and we need to encourage them.

I’ll close this post with a list from a new book called “The Five Biggest Unsolved Problems in Science” by Arthur Wiggins and Charles Wynn.

1. Why do some particles have mass while others have none?

2. Why is the universe expanding faster and faster?

3. What series of chemical reactions gave birth to the first living things?

4. What are the structure and function of the proteins encoded by the human genome?

5. Is accurate, long-range weather forecasting possible?

It’s an interesting list but is it the five biggest? What do you think?