So I went to a lecture this afternoon by double Nobel Laureate K. Barry Sharpless... [View all]
...The lecture was folksy actually, just advice on how to find useful things.
He was very proud of pointing to an article in the Los Angeles Times referring to his first Nobel Prize titled "San Diego Man Wins the Nobel Prize by Combining Wine and Paint." (The Sharpless Asymmetric epoxidation utilizes a titanium oxide (paint) derived complex with a tartaric acid (wine) auxiliary.)
He recently won a second Nobel, shared with Carolyn Bertozzi, for "click chemistry" and his commentary on it was to remark that simple stuff, in particular water, is wonderful.
One of his slides had this advice which people in my lab have kind of shoved in my face on a few occasions where I informed them that stuff wouldn't work and they proved that what I said wouldn't work did work:
Rules have exceptions, the literature can mislead, and who are we to think we know anything at all, when even modeestly complex systems are actually completely out of (our) control."
He suggested reading Out of Control by Kevin Kelly, which he said changed his life.
I guess I should read it, but realistically, I won't.
But really, an even more compelling lecture was by Joe Biden's Undersecretary for Science and Innovation, Geraldine Richmond, who grew up the daughter of a beautician and farmer/small store owner in very rural Kansas. She talked about her life - she's a leading researcher in laser spectroscopic investigations of the chemistry of surfaces - and her rise in her career beginning by being inspired by her high school teacher being impressed by how she solved a geometric problem differently than he had done.
Much of her efforts in her career have been directed at addressing sexism in science, her interest being spurred in the subject by her own career and reflections on an undergraduate course she took for distribution entitled "Sex and Science." She has been a tireless worker driving for equity in science.
In 2012 she received the National Medal of Science from President Obama; the medal was on display in the back of the hall along with a picture of her with the President.
It was a wonderful day, good food, fine wine, and an intellectual feast of sorts.
I'm glad I went. Part of me wanted to blow it off because I'm so damned tired and so pressed for time. It was held at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia which has a very cool museum where among other things, early examples of scientific instruments are on display. Especially cool for me was the historic mass specs. I was tired, had an intense week including a scientific meeting on, well, mass specs, where people were claiming to be able to discern thousands of proteins in a single cell. It is startling to see how much this technology has advanced in my short life.
It is the best of times, and the worst of times, to be living on this planet and this was a perfect day for feeling it.
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